Seven 
Great American Poets 



by 



BEATRICE HART, Pd. D. 

Formerly First Grammar Grade Teacher, Public School No. 3, 

Head of Department, Public School No. 7.1, Borough 

of Brooklyn. New York City. 



ILLUSTRATED 




SILVER, BURDETT & COMPANY 
NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO 






THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two CoptE8 Received 

MAY. 16 1901 

Copyright entry 
Of*.?,'?*' 

CLASS <X> XXc. N». 

6 73 3 

COPY 8. 






Copyright, 1901, 
By SILVER, BUKDETT & COMPANY 



PEEFAOE 



There is a well-founded conviction among educa- 
tors that students should be acquainted not only with 
the best American literature but with the lives of its 
authors, to the end that they may realize that the great 
writers experienced joys and suffered hardships in com- 
mon with their fellowmen ; in short, that we should aim 
to sound a more human note in the study of literature. 
Unfortunately this work is postponed until the stu- 
dent reaches the more advanced grades, usually the 
High School. Since but a small proportion of pupils 
attend the High School, it would seem advisable to 
begin the work much earlier in the school course. 

Biography and autobiography are being generally 
recognized as the form of literature that is the most 
interesting and stimulating in the education of youth. 
If " an autobiography is what a biograph}^ ought to be," 
then no biography is of value that is not largely auto- 
biographical. It should not only tell the life story as 
others knew it, but it should tell, also, as much as may 
be, what the author himself thought of that life. It 
should be both objective and subjective. This, then, is 
the plan adopted in these biographical sketches : to tell 
briefly and simply the life story of each author, with the 
hope that an interest will be awakened in his works 
through the interest in his life. The selections chosen 
from those parts of his works which are autobiographi- 

iii 



IV PKEFACE 

cal, reminiscent, personal or subjective, form an impor- 
tant part of the narrative, and serve to awaken a per- 
sonal interest, while at the same time they furnish 
examples of his writings which may be used apart from 
the context, in the study of literature. As there are no 
compilations simple enough to be so used, this book has 
been prepared with the hope that it will meet the re- 
quirements of those teachers who are endeavoring to 
carry forward this work. 

As poetry is the highest form of literary expression, 
and as children are attracted by the music of rhyme 
and rhythm, these sketches have been devoted to the 
lives of poets. " The works of other men live, but 
their personality dies out of their labors ; the poet who 
reproduces himself in his creation, as no other artist 
does or can, goes down to posterity with all of his per- 
sonality blended with whatever is imperishable in his 
song. ... A single lyric is enough, if one can only find 
in his soul and finish in his intellect one of those jewels 
fit to sparkle on the stretched forefinger of all time." 

Sincere thanks are due to Mr. Charles Eliot Norton, 
Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman, Mr. Parke Godwin, 
Professor George Edward Woodberry, and Messrs. 
Harper & Brothers, Stone & Kimball, and D. Appleton 
& Co., for the use of copyrighted material controlled 
by them. By special arrangement, permission has been 
obtained from Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. for the 
use of their copyrighted material. 

BEATRICE H. SLAIGHT. 
Brooklyn, N.Y., 1900. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

William Cullen Bryant 5 

Ralph Waldo Emerson . 51 

-LdGAR ALLAX POE 91 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 151 

John Greenleaf Whittier 193 

Oliver Wendell Holmes 243 

James Russell Lowell 279 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

William Cullen Bryant 4 

The Bryant Homestead, Cummington . 9 

Goodrich and Hopkins Halls, Williams College ... 17 

Green River 27 

Cedarmere, Roslyn, Long Island, N.Y 37 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 50 

The Old Manse 69 

Emerson's Concord Home , 75 

Concord Bridge 83 

Emerson's Grave 85 

Edgar Allan Foe 90 

University of Virginia: "The Lawn" 106 

The Coliseum 115 

The Poe Cottage at Fordham, New York 136 

Henry Wadswohth Longfellow 150 

Longfellow's Birthplace 153 

Deering's Woods 157 

Wadsworth House, Portland, Maine 163 

Craigie House, Cambridge, Massachusetts 177 

John Greenleaf Whittier 192 

Whittier's Birthplace 197 

Snow-Bound 203 

Oak Knoll, Danvers, Massachusetts ... .... 217 

Oliver Wendell Holmes 242 

Holmes's Birthplace 245 

Home of Dorothy Q., Quincy, Massachusetts 249 

"Old Ironsides" 259 

James Russell Lowell 278 

Elmwood, Lowell's Home - . . 282 

Lowell's Study, Elmwood • , 293 

Memorial Hall, Harvard College 305 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

1794-1878 



So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan, which moves 
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
Thou go not, like the quarry -slave at night, 
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 

Thanatopsis. 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 



So shalt thou frame a lay 

That haply may endure from age to age, 
And they who read shall say : 

" What witchery hangs upon this poet's page ! 
What art is his the written spells to find 
That sway from mood to mood the willing mind." 

The Poet. 
His youth was innocent ; his riper age 

Marked with some act of goodness every day ; 
And watched by eyes that loved him, calm and sage, 

Faded his late declining years away. 
Meekly he gave his being up, and went 
To share the holy rest that waits a life well spent. 

The Old Man's Funeral. 

William Cullen Bryant is justly called " the 
father of our song." His greatest poem, Thanatopsis, 
which established his reputation, was written twenty- 
eight years before the appearance of Longfellow's first 
volume of poetry. Bryant was a poet of nature, inter- 
preting her in simple and most musical verse. Though 
he was a patriot in the best sense of the word, a nota- 
ble journalist for half a century, and a part of the 
national life of the American republic, it is as poet that 
he will be best remembered and best loved. 

William Cullen Bryant was born November 3, 1794, 
at Cummington, Hampshire county, Massachusetts. 

5 



6 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

The log cabin which was his birthplace was removed 
during his childhood, and the Bryant Homestead, owned 
by the poet until his death, was really his childhood's 
home. In 1872, Bryant wrote to a friend of his boy- 
hood, — 

"A hundred years since, this broad highland region lying 
between the Housatonic and the Connecticut was principally 
forest, and bore the name of Pontoosuc. In a few places, set- 
tlers had cleared away woodlands, and cultivated the cleared 
spots. Bears, catamounts and deer were not uncommon here. 
Wolves were sometimes seen, and the woods were dense and 
dark, without any natural openings or meadows. My grand- 
father on the mother's side came up from Plymouth county, in 
Massachusetts, when a young man, in the year 1773, and chose 
a farm on a commanding site overlooking an extensive prospect, 
cut down the trees on a part of it, and built a house of square 
logs, with a chimney as large as some kitchens, within which I 
remember to have sat on a bench in my childhood. About 
ten years afterwards he purchased, of an original settler, the 
contiguous farm, now called the Bryant Homestead, and hav- 
ing built beside a little brook, not very far from a spring 
from which water was to be drawn in pipes, the house which is 
now mine, he removed to it with his family. The soil of this 
region was then exceedingly fertile ; all the settlers prospered, 
and my grandfather among the rest. My father, a physician 
and surgeon, married his daughter, and after awhile came to 
live with him on the homestead. He made some enlargements 
of the house, in one part of which he had his office, and in this, 
during my boyhood, were generally two or three students of 
medicine, who sometimes accompanied my father in his visits to 
his patients, always on horseback, which was the mode of 
traveling at that time. To this place my father brought me in 
my early childhood, and I have scarce any early recollection 
which does not relate to it. 

"On the farm beside the little brook, and at a short distance 



EAELY HOME 7 

from the house, stood the district schoolhouse, of which nothing 
now remains but a little hollow where was once a cellar. Here 
I received my earliest lessons in learning, except such as were 
given me by my mother, and here, when ten years old, I de- 
claimed a copy of verses composed by me as a description of a 
district school. The little brook which runs by the house, on 
the site of the old district schoolhouse, was in after years made 
the subject of a little poem, entitled 'The Rivulet. 1 To the 
south of the house is a wood of tall trees, clothing a declivity, 
and touching with its outermost boughs the grass of a moist 
meadow at the foot of the hill, which suggested the poem en- 
titled < An Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood.' 

" In the year 1835 the place passed out of the family ; and at 
the end of thirty years I purchased it, and made various repairs 
of the house and additions to its size. A part of the building 
which my father had added, and which contained his office, had, 
in the meantime, been detached from it, and moved off down a 
steep hill to the side of the Westfield river. I supplied its place 
with a new wing, with the same external form, though of less 
size, in which is now my library. 

" The site of the house is uncommonly beautiful. Before it, to 
the east, the ground descends, first gradually, and then rapidly, 
to the Westfield river, flowing in a deep and narrow valley, 
from which is heard, after a copious rain, the roar of its swollen 
current, itself unseen. In the springtime, when the frost-bound 
waters are loosened by a warm rain, the roar and crash are re- 
markably loud, as the icy crust of the stream is broken, and the 
masses of ice are swept along by the flood over the stones with 
which the bed of the river is paved. Beyond the narrow valley 
of the Westfield, the surface of the country rises again gradually, 
carrying the eye over a region of vast extent, interspersed with 
farmhouses, pasture lands, and wooded heights, where, on a 
showery day, you sometimes see two or three different showers, 
each watering its separate district; and in winter time, two 
or three different snowstorms moving dimly from place to 
place." 



8 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

The house is a spacious and rambling mansion of 
two stories and a half, with a curb roof, antique dormer 
windows and broad porches. Bryant's boyhood home, 
of which the foregoing is a delightful description, was 
in the beautiful hill country of western Massachusetts. 
It is a farming and grazing district. The slopes of the 
hills are dotted with weil-tilled farms, and the waters 
of the mountain streams are used to turn the mills of 
various industries, } r et much of the country is as nature 
made it, and as the boy early learned to love it. The 
hills are still covered with thick woods, and the moun- 
tain streams still rush down to the beautiful valleys 
between the hills. In later life, when worn out with 
his professional cares, Bryant would revisit the home" 
of his childhood, taking great pleasure in it, as the fol- 
lowing lines show, — 

I stand upon my native hills again, 

Broad, round, and green, that in the summer sky, 
With garniture of waving grass and grain, 

Orchards, and beeehen forests, basking lie, 
While deep the sunless glens are scooped between, 
Where brawl o'er shallow beds the streams unseen. 

Here, have I 'scaped the city's stifling heat, 

Its horrid sounds, and its polluted air, 
And, where the season's milder fervor beat, 

And gales, that sweep the forest borders, bear 
. The song of bird and sound of running stream, 
Am come awhile to wander and to dream. 

Line* on Revisiting the Country. 

It was here that the boy's mind was fed, and his 
heart filled with that deep love for nature that is 



10 WILLIAM CULLEN BEYANT 

shown in all his poems. He loved the outdoor life af- 
forded him by the wild and beautiful country surround- 
ing his early home, and its freedom was doubtless one 
reason for the physical strength and mental vigor that 
he displayed until his death. That he enjoyed such free- 
dom, and learned to love the hills and dales, the woods 
and streams, the birds and flowers, of his Hampshire 
home, is shown in the many allusions to the scenes of 
his childhood in his poems. The Rivulet, one of his 
first poems, is a charming picture of his early life at 
Cummington. 

This little rill, that from the springs 
Of yonder grove its current brings, 
Plays on the slope awhile, and then 
Goes prattling into groves again, 
Oft to its warbling waters drew 
My little feet, when life was new. 
When woods in early green were dressed, 
And from the chambers of the west 
The warmer breezes, traveling out, 
Breathed the new scent of* flowers about, 
My truant steps from home would stray, 
Upon its grassy side to. play, 
List the brown thrasher's vernal hymn, 
And crop the violet on its brim, 
With blooming cheek and open brow, 
As young and gay, sweet rill, as thou. 

And when the days of boyhood came, 
And I had grown in love with fame, 
Duly I sought thy banks, and tried 
My first rude numbers by thy side. 
Words cannot tell how bright and gay 
The scenes of life before me lay. 
Then glorious hopes, that now to sj)eak 
Would bring the blood into my cheek, 



ANCESTORS .11 

Passed o'er me ; and I wrote, on high, 
A name I deemed should never die. 

Years change thee not. Upon yon hill 
The tall old maples, verdant still, 
Yet tell, in grandeur of decay, 
How swift the years have passed away, 
Since first, a child, and half afraid, 
I wandered in the forest shade. 
Thou, ever-joyous rivulet, 
Dost dimple, leap, and prattle yet; 
And sporting with the sands that pave 
The windings of thy silver wave, 
And dancing to thy own wild chime, 
Thou laughest at the lapse of time. 
The same sweet sounds are in my ear 
My early childhood loved to hear ; 
As pure thy limpid waters run ; 
As bright they sparkle to the sun ; 
As fresh and thick the bending ranks 
Of herbs that line thy oozy banks ; 
The violet there, in soft May dew, 
Comes up, as modest and as blue ; 
As green amid thy current's stress, 
Floats the scarce-rooted water cress ; 
And the brown ground-bird, in thy glen, 
Still chirps as merrily as then. 

The Rivulet. 

The first of the poet's ancestors of his name that 
came to this country was Stephen Bryant. He came 
from England about twelve years after the arrival of 
the Mayflower, and settled at Plymouth, Massachusetts. 
He married Abigail Shaw in 1650, and their eldest son, 
Philip, studied medicine. Dr. Philip Bryant settled at 
North Bridgewater, marrying the daughter of the phy- 



12 WILLIAM CULLEN JJEVANT 

sician, Dr. Abiel Howard, with whom he studied medi- 
cine. Of their nine children, their son, Peter, father of 
the poet, studied his father's profession and succeeded 
to his practice. 

In Bridgewater, there was a stern and austere veteran 
of the Revolution, Ebenezer Snell, whom all the small 
boys in the town feared. He had a very pretty daugh- 
ter, Sarah, with whom Peter Bryant fell in love. When 
Mr. Snell moved to Cummington, Dr. Bryant followed, 
establishing himself there as physician and surgeon; and 
in 1792, Dr. Bryant and Sarah Snell were married. 

Sarah Snell was a direct descendant of John Alden 
and Priscilla Mullins, whose story has been made fa- 
miliar to all by Longfellow's poem, The Courtship of 
Miles Standish. She was a woman of great force of 
character. Her dignity, firmness, honesty and energy, 
showed the stock from which she had come. 

Her son says of her : " She was a person of quick 
and sensitive moral judgment, and had no patience with 
any form of deceit or duplicity," and he adds, " if, in 
the discussion of public questions, I have in my riper 
age endeavored to keep in view the great rule of right 
without much regard to persons, it has been owing in 
great degree to the force of her example, which taught 
me never to. countenance a wrong because others did." 

Her school education was slight, including only the 
ordinary English branches, but she was a great reader, 
by which means she supplied the lack of her early edu- 
cation. 

Dr. Bryant was an unusually well-educated man, his 
literary and scientific knowledge 'being extensive. ' As 



BOYHOOD 13 

a member of the Massachusetts Legislature, and an at- 
tendant at the meetings of a Medical Society which met 
in Boston, he had frequent occasion to go to the city. 
In this way, his manners and costume became those of 
an accomplished city-bred gentleman rather than of a 
farmer or country physician. Though he enjoyed 
society, he was a man of very reserved nature. 

William Cullen Bryant was the second son in a fam- 
ily of seven children, — five sons and two daughters. 
He was named William Cullen, after a prominent physi- 
cian, Dr. Cullen, whom his father greatly admired. 
Dr. Bryant was one of the third generation to practice 
medicine, and as he was very proud of his profession, 
his ambition was that William should become a physi- 
cian. Neither William nor any of the boys, however, 
were so inclined. 

Mrs. Bryant taught her little son Watis's hymns when 
he was scarcely three years old, and in his poem, A Life- 
time, Bryant tells of standing by his mother's knee 
reading the Scriptures. At four years of age he read 
well, and was an almost faultless speller. 

hi The Boys of My Boyhood, Bryant has told the 
story of his childhood, his pleasures and amusements, 
his early education, the severe discipline of his home 
life, and the great fear he had of his grandfather, with 
whom the Bryants lived. 

" The boys of the generation to which I belonged — that is to 
say, who were born in the last years of the last century or the 
earliest of this — were brought up under a system of discipline 
which put a far greater distance between parents and their chil- 
dren than now exists. The parents seemed to think this neces- 



14 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

sary, in order to secure obedience. They were believers in the old 
maxim that familiarity breeds contempt. My own parents lived 
in the house with my grandfather and grandmother on the 
mother's side. My grandfather was a disciplinarian of the 
stricter sort, and I can hardly find words to express the awe in 
which I stood of him — an awe so great as almost to prevent any- 
thing like affection on my part, although he was in the main 
kind, and.certainly never thought of being severe, beyond what 
was necessary to maintain a proper degree of order in the 
family. 

" The other boys in that part of the country, my schoolmates 
and playfellows, were educated on the same system. Yet there 
were at this time some indications that this very severe discipline 
was beginning to relax. With my father and mother I was on 
much easier terms than with my grandfather. If a favor was 
to be asked of my grandfather it was asked with fear and trem- 
bling ; the request was postponed to the last moment, and then 
made with hesitation and blushes and a confused utterance. 

" One of the means of keeping the boys of that generation in 
order was. a little bundle of birchen rods, bound together by a 
small cord, and generally suspended on a nail against the wall 
in the kitchen. This was esteemed as much a part of the neces- 
sary furniture as the crane that hung in the kitchen fireplace, or 
the shovel and tongs. It sometimes happened that the boy suf- 
fered a fate similar to that of the eagle in the fable, wounded by 
an arrow Hedged with feathers from his ow n wing ; in other 
words, the boy was made to gather the twigs intended for his 
own castigation." — The Boys of My Boyhood. 

Bryant early showed a liking for reading and stndy. 
His father, who was much interested in the education 
of his children, guided his son in his study, and directed 
his reading to the poets he himself liked, — Pope, Gray 
and Goldsmith. Not merely in his study but in his 
rambles over fields and country roads, Bryant's thoughts 
were directed by his father, whose knowledge of botany 



FIRST POEMS 15 

was extensive. He gave his son his first instruction in 
the study that afterward developed into that wide 
knowledge of the whole field of nature. Early recog- 
nizing the poetic ability of his son, Dr. Bryant wisely 
aided in its development, correcting but encouraging 
the boy's first attempts at verse. In his poem, Hymn 
to Death, he alludes to this early training by his father. 

Alas ! I little thought that the stern power, 
Whose fearful praise I sang, would try me thus 
Before the strain was ended. It must cease — 
For he is in his grave who taught my youth 
The art of verse, and in the bud of life 
Offered me to the Muses. Oh, cut off 
Untimely ! when thy reason in its strength, 
Ripened by years of toil and studious research, 
And watch of Nature's silent lessons, taught 
Thy hand to practice best the lenient art 
To which thou gavest thy laborious days, 
And, last, thy life. 

Hymn to Death. 

When he was eight years old, Bryant wrote poems. 
One of his first efforts was putting into verse the first 
chapter of Job, and another, a poetical address before 
the school. His first publication was a school exercise 
in verse that was printed in The Hampshire Gazette of 
Northampton. In his thirteenth year, he wrote a polit- 
ical poem of over five hundred lines, entitled The Em- 
bargo ; or, Sketches of the Times. A Satire. By a Youth 
of Thirteen. The poem attracted general attention, 
and was praised for its literary worth even by those 
who opposed the political opinions expressed in it. A 
second edition of the poem was published in 1809, and 



1(3 WILLIAM CULLEN BKYANT 

as some doubts were expressed as to its authorship, the 
printer offered to give the names of those who would 
vouch that the poem was written by a boy of thirteen. 
In this second edition appeared several other of his 
poems. 

Before he was sixteen Bryant had written more than 
forty pieces, in the forms of translations, odes, songs, 
elegies or satires. - Though these early efforts were to 
some extent echoes of book learning, or his father's 
opinions, and though they gave no indications of his 
love for nature, which so marked his later verse, still 
there was nothing forced or immature about his lines. 
For years the boy continued to study and write. Oc- 
casionally, to test his progress, he would send poems to 
papers or magazines, without signature, or under names 
not likely to betray him. 

When fourteen years old, he began the study of Latin 
with his uncle, the Rev. Dr. Thomas Sneli, living with 
him for a year. At fifteen, he studied Greek with the 
Rev. Moses Hallock, who prepared him for college ; and 
it is said that in two months' study he knew the Greek 
Testament as well as if it had been in English. 

Bryant is described as being, at this time, a small, 
delicate, handsome boy, shy and reserved. He was a 
great reader, and a natural scholar like his father. At 
fifteen, he was not only well advanced in all his studies, 
but was remarkably well informed in every way. 
Though a student, he enjoyed outdoor sports. He was 
an excellent runner, and on his visits home would take 
part in various games with the other boys. 

In October, 1810, when in his sixteenth year, he 



18 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

entered the sophomore class of Williams College. He 
remained here only seven months, as Dr. Bryant had 
not the means to pay for his further education. The 
hope had been that, in due time, he would be able to 
send his son back to Williams, or to Yale, but it did 
not become possible. During his short stay in college, 
Bryant made an excellent record, his associates and 
professors becoming greatly attached to him. The 
seven months at Williams College ended his college 
education, but the college in 1819 conferred upon him 
the degree of Master of Arts, and, later, made him a 
member of the Alumni. 

Bryant so disliked the publicity of class duties that 
he was very glad to renew his studies alone. For a 
year after he left college, he studied the classics and 
mathematics, hoping to enter Yale. During that time 
he did not neglect his poetry, for he continued to write 
patriotic poems. It was during this period that he was 
planning or thinking about his wonderful poem -on 
death. Thanatopsis, the first great and lasting poem 
in American literature, shows a power and grandeur 
that none of his previous efforts indicated. Bryant 
says that this poem was written either during his 
eighteenth or nineteenth year, he is not quite sure 
which, but it was after he left college, and before he 
began his law studies in 1813. For some reason, he 
did not send this poem to The Hampshire Gazette, as 
he had his other verses. He put it away, probably 
with the purpose of re-writing it, and seems to have 
forgotten it. This first rough draft was written in 
about a week. 



THANATOPSIS 19 

One day, after Bryant had left home to study law, 
his father, in turning over a drawer full of old manu- 
scripts of his son's, came upon Thanatopsis. He was 
so impressed with its power and beauty, that, unknown 
to his son, he sent it with two other poems to The 
North American Revietv. It was published in Septem- 
ber, 1817. The poem was then in the form that it is 
now, Bryant adding the introductory and closing lines 
in 1821, and making a slight change in the part allud- 
ing to the ocean. In its first publication, through a 
blunder, four verses on death, which were quite inferior 
in quality, were prefixed as an introduction to the 
poem. Of the poem, George William Curtis says : 

' ' It was the first adequate poetic voice of the solemn New 
England spirit ; and in the grandeur of the hills, in the heroic 
Puritan tradition of sacrifice and endurance, in the daily life, 
saddened by imperious and awful theologic dogma, in the hard 
circumstances of the pioneer household, the contest with the 
wilderness, the grim legends of Indians and the war — have we 
not some outward clue to the strain of ' Thanatopsis ' — the 
depthless and entrancing sadness, as of inexorable fate, that 
murmurs, like the autumn wind through the forest, in the mel- 
ancholy cadences of this hymn to Death ? Moreover, it was 
without a harbinger in our literature, and without a trace of the 
English masters of the hour." 

THANATOPSIS 
To him who in the love of Nature holds 
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
A various language ; for his gayer hours 
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 
And eloquence di beauty, and she glides 
Into his darker musings, with a mild 
And healing sympathy, that steals away 



20 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts 

Of the last bitter hour come like a blight 

Over thy spirit, and sad images 

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, 

And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, 

Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart ; — 

Go forth, under the open sky, and list 

To Nature's teachings, while from all around — 

Earth and her waters, and the depths of air — 

Comes a still voice — Yet a few days, and thee 

The all-beholding sun shall see no more 

In all his course ; nor yet in the cold ground, 

Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, 

Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist 

Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim 

Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, 

And, lost each human trace, surrendering up 

Thine individual being, shalt thou o-o 

To mix for ever with the elements, 

To be a brother to the insensible rock 

And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain 

Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak 

Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. 

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place 
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish 
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down 
W T ith patriarchs .of the infant world — with kings, 
The powerful of the earth — the wise, the good, 
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, 
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills 
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, — the vales 
Stretching in pensive quietness between ; 
The venerable woods — rivers that move 
In majesty, and the complaining brooks 
That make the meadows green ; and, poured round all, 
Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste, — 



THANATOPSLS 21 

Are but the solemn decorations all 

Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, 

The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, 

Are shining on the sad abodes of death, 

Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread 

The globe are but a handful to the tribes 

That slumber in its bosom. — Take the wino-s 

Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness, 

Or lose thyself in the continuous woods 

Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound, 

Save his own dashings — yet the dead are there : 

And millions in those solitudes, since first 

The flight of years began, have laid them down 

In their last sleep — the dead reign there alone. 

So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw 

In silence from the living, and no friend 

Take note of thy departure ?. All that breathe 

Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh 

When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care 

Plod on, and each one as before will chase 

His favorite phantom ; yet all these shall leave 

Their mirth and their employments, and shall come 

And make their bed with thee. As the long train 

Of ages glides away, the sons of men, 

The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes 

In the full strength of years, matron and maid, 

The speechless babe, and the graj'-headed man — 

Shall one by one be gathered to thy side, 

By those, who in their turn shall follow them. 

So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan, which moves 
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, 
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed . 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, 



22 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 

With Thanatopsis, Dr. Bryant also sent Inscription 
for the Entrance to a Wood, written in 1813, and pub- 
lished at the same time with Thanatopsis. South of the 
old homestead at Cummington, beyond a meadow, is 
the wood for which the poet wrote the inscription. 

These shades 
Are still the abodes of gladness ; the thick roof 
Of green and stirring branches is alive 
And musical with birds, that sing and sport 
In wantonness of spirit ; while below 
The squirrel, with raised paws and form erect, 
Chirps merrily. Throngs of insects in the shade 
Try their thin wings and dance in the warm beam 
That waked them into life. Even the green trees 
Partake the deep contentment ; as they bend 
To the soft winds, the sun from the blue &ky 
Looks in and sheds a blessing on the scene. 
Scarce less the cleft-born wild-flower seems to enjoy 
Existence, than the winged plunderer 
That sucks its- sweets. The mossy rocks themselves, 
And the old and ponderous trunks of prostrate trees 
That lead from knoll to knoll a causey rude, 
Or bridge the sunken brook, and their dark roots, 
With all their earth upon them, twisting high, 
Breathe fixed tranquillity. The rivulet 
Sends forth glad sounds, and tripping o'er its bed 
Of pebbly sands, or leaping down the rocks, 
Seems, with continuous laughter, to rejoice 
In its own being. Softly tread the marge, 
Lest from her midway perch thou scare the wren 
That dips her bill in water. The cool wind, 
That stirs the stream in play, shall come to thee, 



TO A WATERFOWL 23 

Like one that loves thee nor will let thee pass 
Ungreeted, and shall give its light embrace. 

Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood. 

In 1813, Bryant began the study of law with Judge 
Samuel Howe of Worthington, near Cummington. He 
remained here for nearly two years. He completed his 
law studies with the Hon. William Baylies of Bridge- 
water, and in 1815, at the age of twenty-one, he was 
admitted to the bar at Plymouth. 

In 1815, during his residence at Cummington, he 
wrote his exquisite poem, To a Waterfowl. It shows a 
keen observation of nature and a deep trust in God's 
loving care. It is expressed in a manner that suggests 
a sweet and simple melody. The poem was prompted by 
the flight of a wild duck, which he saw while on his way 
to Plainfield. His son-in-law, Parke Godwin, gives the 
following account of the writing of the poem: 

44 He says in a letter that he felt, as he walked up the hills, 
very forlorn and desolate indeed, not knowing what was to be- 
come of him in the big world, which grew bigger as he ascended, 
and yet darker with the coming on of night. The sun had 
already set, leaving behind it one of those brilliant seas of 
chrysolite and opal which often flood the New England skies ; 
and, while he. was looking upon the rosy splendor with wrapt 
admiration, a solitary bird made wing along the illuminated 
horizon, lie watched the lone wanderer until it was lost in the 
distance, asking himself whither it had come and to what far 
home it was flying. When he went to the house where he was 
to stop for the night, his mind was still full of what he had seen 
and felt, and he wrote those lines, as imperishable as our lan- 
guage, The Waterfowl r 

The poem was published six months after Thanatopsis. 



24 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

TO A WATERFOWL 

Whither, midst falling dew, 
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, 
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue 

Thy solitary way ? 

Vainly the fowler's eye 
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, 
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, 

Thy figure floats along. 

Seek'st thou the plashy brink 
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, 
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink 

On the chafed ocean-side? 

There is a Power whose care 
Teaches thy w T ay along that pathless coast — 
The desert and illimitable air — 

Lone wandering, but not lost. 

All day thy wings have fanned, 
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, 
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, 

Though the dark night is near. 

And soon that toil shall end ; 
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, 
And scream among thy fellows ; reeds shall bend, 

Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest, 

Thou 1 rt gone, the abyss of heaven 
Math swallowed up thy form ; yet, on my heart 
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast, given, 

And shall not soon depart. 

lie who, from zone to zone, 
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight. 
In the long way that I must tread alone, 

Will lead my steps aright. 



RESIDENCE IN GREAT BARRINGTON 25 

Bryant began the practice of law at Plainfield, but 
he removed the following year to Great Barrington. 
He remained there for nine years, writing during this 
period some of his most popular poems. 

Great Barrington and Williamstown, the seat of 
Williams College, are situated in the beautiful moun- 
tain region of the Berkshires. The valley formed by 
the mountains is irregularly circular in shape, broad, 
deep and fertile, with other valleys opening into it, and 
traversed by the Housatonic$ with its tributary, the Green 
river. Bryant had early formed the habit of taking 
long, solitary rambles over the fields and through the 
woods, a habit he always continued as a release from 
study or work. Of this love of solitude, he says, in an 
unfinished poem written in his old age, 

" Ever apart from the resorts of men 
He roamed the pathless woods, and hearkened long 
To winds that brought into their silent depths 
The murmurs of the mountain waterfalls." 

The Berkshire region afforded him ample opportunity 
to get away from the haunts of men, and to enjoy the 
full beauty of waterfall, river, mountain, plain or 
woods. It is quite certain that during his nine years 
at Great Barrington, his happiest hours were spent in 
the study of nature and in voicing her beauties in his 
poems, for the practice of law from the first was 
decidedly uncongenial to him. 

Of the many poets that Bryant studied, Wordsworth 
made the deepest and most lasting impression. In 1810, 
he came upon a volume of his Lyrical Ballads. Of it 
he said that " upon opening the book a thousand springs 



26 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

seemed to gush up at once in his heart, and the face of 
nature, of a sudden, to change into a strange freshness 
and life." Under the influence of this poet, he seemed 
to get closer still to the truth, beauty and goodness of 
universal nature, from which he drew the inspiration 
of his best poems. 

In 1817, while at Great Barrington, Bryant wrote 
G-reen River. In addition to its being a beautifully 
descriptive poem, it expresses his dissatisfaction with 
his profession and his longing to be wholly free. 

GREEN RIVER 

When breezes are soft and skies are fair, 
I steal an hour from study and care, 
And hie me away to the woodland scene, 
Where wanders the stream with waters of green, 
As if the bright fringe of herbs on its brink 
Had given their stain to the wave they drink ; 
And they, whose meadows it murmurs through, 
Have named the stream from its own fair hue. 

Yet pure its waters — its shallows are bright 
With colored pebbles and sparkles of light, 
And clear the depths where its eddies play, 
And dimples deepen and whirl away, 
And the plane-tree's speckled arms o'ershoot 
The swifter current that mines its root, 
Through whose shifting leaves, as you walk the hill, 
The quivering glimmer of sun and rill 
With a sudden flash on the eye is thrown, 
Like the ray that streams from the diamond-stone. 
Oh, loveliest there the spring days come, 
With blossoms, and birds, and wild-bees 1 hum; 
The flowers of summer are fairest there, 
And freshest the breath of the summer air ; 



28 WILLIAM CULLEN BKYANT 

And sweetest the golden autumn day 
In silenee and sunshine glides away. 

Yet, fair as thou art, thou slimmest to glide, 
Beautiful stream ! by the village side ; 
But windest away from haunts of men, 
To quiet valley and shaded glen ; 
And forest, and meadow, and slope of hill, 
Around thee, are lonely, lovely, and still, 
Lonely — save when, by thy rippling tides, 
From thieket to thicket the angler glides ; 
Or the simpler comes, with basket and book, 
For herbs of power on thy banks to look ; 
Or haply, some idle dreamer, like me, 
To wander, and muse, and gaze on thee, 
Still — save the chirp of birds that feed 
On the river cherry and seedy reed, 
And thy own wild music gushing out 
With mellow murmur of fairy shout, 
From dawn to the blush of another day, 
Like traveler singing along his way. 

That fairy music I never hear, 
Nor gaze on those waters so green and clear, 
And mark them winding away from sight, 
Darkened with shade or flashing with light, 
While o'er them the vine to its thicket clings, 
And the zephyr stoops to freshen his wings, 
But I wish that fate had left me free 
To wander these quiet haunts with thee, 
Till the eating cares of earth should depart, 
And the peace of the scene pass into my heart; 
And I envy thy stream, as it glides along 
Through its beautiful banks in a trance of song. 

Though forced to drudge for the dregs of men, 
And scrawl strange words with the barbarous pen, 



THE AGES 29 

And mingle among the jostling crowd, 

Where the sons of strife are subtle and loud, 

I often come to this quiet place, 

To breathe the airs that ruffle thy face, 

And gaze upon thee in silent dream, 

For in thy lonely and lovely stream 

An image of that calm life appears 

That won my heart in my greener years. 

At Great Barrington, Bryant met Miss Frances Fair- 
child, whom he married in January, 1821. Song and 
Oh Fairest of the Rural Maids are two poems in which 
he expresses his love for her. Mrs. Bryant was a 
woman of a gentle, sympathetic and deeply religious 
nature. She was her husband's only intimate friend, 
and when she died he had no other. Bryant's domestic 
life, covering a period of forty-six years, was unusually 
happy. Many of the poet's verses show his devotion 
and reverence for her sweet and pure character. 

In the same year, the summer of 1821, he was in- 
vited by the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard, to 
write a poem for them. In response to this invitation, 
he wrote The Ages, his longest and most elaborate poem. 
It is a thoughtful .presentation of the history of man- 
kind from the earliest period. It is considered the best 
college poem ever written. 

Look on this beautiful world, and read the truth 
In her fair page ; see, every season brings 
New change, to her, of everlasting youth ; 
Still the green soil, with joyous living things, 
Swarms, the wide air is full of joyous wings, 
And myriads, still, are happy in the sleep 
Of ocean's azure gulfs, and where he flings 



30 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

The restless surge. Eternal Love doth keep, 
In his complacent arms, the earth, the air, the deep. 

Late, from this Western shore, that morning chased 
The deep and ancient night, which threw its shroud 
O'er the green land of groves, the beautiful waste, 
Nurse of full streams, and lifter-up of proud 
Sky-mingling mountains that o'erlook the cloud. 
Erewhile, where yon gay spires their brightness rear, 
Trees waved, and the brown hunter's shouts were loud 
Amid the forest ; and the bounding deer 
Fled at the glancing plume, and the gaunt wolf yelled near. 



But thou, my country, thou shalt never fall 
Save with thy children — thy maternal care, 
Thy. lavish love, thy blessings showered on all — 
These are thy fetters — seas and stormy air 
Are the wide barrier of thy borders, where, 
Among thy gallant sons who guard thee well, 
Thou laugh'st at enemies ; who shall then declare 
The date of thy deep-founded strength, or tell 
How happy, in thy lap, the sons of men shall dwell ? 

The Ages. 

During this year, upon the urgent advice of friends, 
Bryant was induced to publish his first volume of 
poems, a little book of about forty pages. It con- 
tained The Ages, To a Waterfowl, Translation of a 
Fragment of Simonides, Inscription for the Entrance to 
a Wood, The Yellow Violet, Gcreen River, Song and 
Thanatopsis. The book was everywhere well received, 
and it firmly established his reputation as a poet. 
Shortly after appeared his Hymn to Death, in which is 
his tender tribute to his father. 



CAREER AS EDITOR 31 

During the next four years, Bryant wrote about thirty 
poems. Some of the most familiar of these poems are 
The Rivulet, Monument Mountain, Autumn Woods, Hymn 
to the North Star, The Forest Hymn and The Old Man's 
Funeral. These are among his finest poems. Monu- 
ment Mountain is a pathetic and tragic love story of 
an Indian girl of the Stockbridge tribe. The poem 
is named after Monument Mountain, near Great Bar- 
rington. 

In 1824, Bryant visited New York for the first time, 
meeting, while there, the best literary men of the city. 
The practice of law having always been uncongenial to 
him, when his friends in New York wrote, in the win- 
ter of 1824-1825, that an editorship had been obtained 
for him, he joyfully gave up law and left Great Bar- 
rington for New York early in 1825. One of the last 
of the Berkshire poems was June, published the year 
after he left Great Barring ton. 

Bryant began his journalistic career as co-editor 
of TheNeiv York Review and Athencemn in 1825. This 
position gave little promise of success, so in the follow- 
ing year he became the assistant editor of The Evening 
Post, and, three years later, in 1829, the editor-in- 
chief. He was associated with this paper for the 
remainder of his life. His best energies were now 
devoted to a daily paper, and poetry, of necessity, 
became the occupation of his leisure hours and not his 
life work. 

Among the poems contributed to The New York Re- 
view was The Death of the Flowers, in which he speaks 
most tenderly of his sister's death : 



32 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

The melancholy clays are come, the saddest of the year, 

Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and 

sere. 
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves He dead ; 
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread. 
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay, 
And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day. 

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang 

and stood 
In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood? 
Alas ! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers 
Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours. 
The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain 
Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again. 

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died, 
The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side . 
In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forest cast the leaf, 
And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief : 
Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours, 
So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers. 

The Death of the Flowers. 

As assistant editor, Bryant gained an insight into the 
requirements of a newspaper, and, seeing the many 
faults of the journals of the day, he determined to cor- 
rect them, and to raise the moral and literary tone of 
journalism. He felt that such was his mission, and 
the history of his career as editor of The Evening Post 
shows how well he fulfilled it. Looking upon a news- 
paper as a moral force that could mold and elevate 
public opinion, he used it as such during the fifty years 
devoted to the work. 

As a newspaper editor, he was thorough, industrious 
and successful. During a period of fierce political 
struggle and bitter personal enmities, Bryant showed 



POLITICAL PRINCIPLES 3-3 

how wrongs might be righted and the right maintained 
without intruding upon the private life of the wrong- 
doer. He neither criticised nor condemned any person ; 
it was the wrong act, not the person, that brought forth 
his censure. The keynote of his newspaper career is 
best expressed in his famous lines : 

" Truth crushed to earth shall rise again; 
The eternal years of God are hers ; 
But Error, wounded, writhes with j3ain 
And dies among his worshippers. 1 ' 

Bryant was not a close follower of any political 
party. He remained with a party as long as it repre- 
sented principles in which he believed. He has, there- 
fore, been called Federalist, Democrat and Republican, 
whereas he was, in fact, each and all of them in so far 
as they served the cause for which the Republic stood, 
— freedom and humanity. During his editorship, he 
had opportunity to criticise the administrations of Presi- 
dents Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison, T}der, Polk, Tay- 
lor, Fillmore, Prerce, Buchanan, Lincoln, Grant and 
Hayes. 

During the great slavery contest from 1820 to 1861, 
Bryant stood for the freedom of the slave, a course 
prompted by his conscience, and his love of justice and 
liberty. He had hoped for freedom without bloodshed, 
but when the storm burst, his poem, Our Country's Call, 
was a patriotic appeal that aroused thousands to arms. 

Lay down the ax ; fling by the spade ; 

Leave in its track the toiling plow ; 
The rifle and the bayonet-blade 

For arms like yours were fitter now ; 



M WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

And let the hands that ply the pen 

Quit the light task, and learn to wield 

The horseman's crooked brand, and rein 
The charger on the battlefield. 

Few, few are those whose swords of old 

Won the fair land in which we dwell ; 
But we are many, we who hold 

The grim resolve to guard it well. 
Strike, for that broad and goodly land, 

Blow after blow, till men shall see 
That Might and Right move hand in hand, 

And glorious must their triumph be ! 

Our Country' 's Call. 

In 1865, appeared his beautiful poem, 

THE DEATH OF LINCOLN. 

Oh, slow to smite and swift to spare, 

Gentle and merciful and just ! 
Who, in the fear of God, didst bear 

The sword of power, a nation's trust ! 

In sorrow by thy bier we stand, 

Amid the awe that hushes all, 
And speak the anguish of a land 

That shook with horror at thy fall. - 

Thy task is done ; the bond are free ; 

We bear thee to an honored grave, 
Whose proudest monument shall be 

The broken fetters of the slave. 

Pure was thy life ; its bloody close 

Hath placed thee with the sons of light, 

Among the noble host of those 

Who perished in the cause of Right. 



STUDIES AND TRAVELS 35 

When slavery was finally abolished, he wrote a re- 
markably fine poem of triumph, entitled The Death of 
Slavery. 

Bryant's prose was in every way as excellent as his 
verse, and doubtless he would have gained a reputa- 
tion for that alone had not the music of his poems 
already charmed the public ear. 

In 1832, Bryant collected all his poems written pre- 
vious to that date, and published them in book form. 
Through the influence of Washington Irving, who was 
then Secretary of the American Legation at London, 
an edition was published in England. The poems were 
everywhere well received, and his reputation became as 
well established in Europe as in America. 

He was a student not only of English literature, but 
he also translated poems from the Greek, Latin, Span- 
ish, German and Portuguese. He was over seventy 
years old when he undertook the difficult task of trans- 
lating Homer. He occupied his leisure hours with it, 
completing the Iliad in three years, and the Odyssey in 
two years. The Iliad was published in 1870, and the 
Odyssey in 1871. His work compares most favorably 
with the translations of other eminent scholars. 

Bryant became a great traveler, visiting Europe six 
times, and traveling extensively in the United States 
His first trip abroad was in 1834. He remained two 
years. His last visit was in 1867. The result of 
these extensive travels was his Letters of a Traveler 
and Letters from the East. During his second trip 
abroad, he seemed much impressed by the parks of 
London. A letter written to the Post about them and 



36 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

the necessity of having one in New York, was the means 
of establishing Central Park. 

In 1842, appeared the volume entitled The Fountain 
and other Poems. It contained the poems written dur- 
ing the previous seventeen years, among them being The 
Woods, The Gireen Mountain Boys, The Death of Schil- 
ler, Life, A Presentiment, The Future Life and An 
Eveyiing Reverie. The Future Life was written to his 
wife about twenty years after their marriage, and is a 
charming expression of their mutual love. 

How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps 

The disembodied spirits of the dead, 
When all of thee that time could wither sleeps 

And perishes among the dust we tread ? 

For I shall feel the sting- of ceaseless pain 
If there I meet thy gentle presence not ; 
Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again 
. In thy serenest eyes the tender thought. 

Will not thy own meek heart demand me there ? 

That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given — 
My name on earth was ever in thy prayer, 

And must thou never utter it in heaven ? 

Yet, though thou wear'st the glory of the sky, 
Wilt thou not keep the same beloved name, 

The same fair thoughtful brow, and gentle eye, 
Lovelier in heaven's sweet climate, yet the same ? 

Shalt thou not teach me, in that calmer home, 
The wisdom that I learned so ill in this — 

The wisdom which is love — till I become 
Thy tit companion in that land of bliss i 3 

The Future Life. 



38 WILLIAM CULLEN BUY ANT 

The White-footed Deer and other Poems was published 
in 1844. In 1845, Bryant purchased an estate near 
Roslyn, Long Island, New York, which he named Cedar- 
mere. The house was built in 1787. It was situated 
on the top of the hills, surrounded by trees, green fields 
and streams, and commanded a fine view of the bay. 
He had the old house repaired and improved, and the 
grounds made ideally beautiful. He devoted much of 
his time to tree planting and pruning. The rooms 
were filled with many beautiful and curious objects that 
he had collected on his various travels. His excellent 
library of several thousand volumes he kept at Cedar- 
mere. Here also he wrote his later poems. 

While in Europe in 1858, Mrs. Bryant became dan- 
gerously ill. Upon her recovery, her husband wrote 
the joyous poem, The Life that Is. 

After Bryant's return from his second trip to Europe, 
Edgar Allan Poe wrote the following description of 
him: 

" He is now fifty -two years of age. In height he is, perhaps, 
five feet nine. Bis frame is rather robust. His features are 
large, but thin. His countenance is sallow, nearly bloodless. 
His eyes are piercing gray, deep set, with large projecting eye- 
brows. His mouth is wide and massive; the expression of the 
smile hard, cold, even sardonic. The forehead is broad, with 
prominent organs of ideality ; a good deal bald ; the hair thin 
and grayish; as are also the whiskers, which he wears in a 
simple style. His bearing is quite distinguished, full of the 
aristocracy of intellect. In general, he looks in better health 
than before his last visit to England. He seems active — physi- 
cally and morally energetic. His dress is plain to the extreme 
of simplicity, although of late there is a certain degree of 
Anglicism about it. 



DEATH OF MRS. BRYANT 39 

" In character no man stands more lofty than Bryant. The 
peculiar melancholy expression of his countenance has caused 
him to be accused of harshness, or coldness of heart. Never 
was there a greater mistake. His soul is charity itself , in all 
respects generous and noble. His manners are undoubtedly 
reserved. 1 ' 

In 1861, The Third of November was published, a 
poem in which he speaks of himself and his great love 
for nature. 

A volume entitled Thirty Poems, which were then 
his latest, appeared in 1863. 

On July 27, 1866, Mrs. Bryant died. She was 
buried in the Roslyn cemetery, which is about half a 
mile from Cedarmere. Her death was the one great 
sorrow of Bryant's life. He has made sacred her mem- 
ory in many of his poems. Oh Fairest of the Mural 
Maids, Song, The Future Life, The Life that Ls, A 
Lifetime, May Evening, and the exquisite poem, The 
May Sun Sheds an Amber Light, all contain allusions 
to her. 

Upon the woodland's morning airs 

The small birds' mingled notes are flung; 
But she, whose voice, more sweet than theirs 
Once bade me listen while they sung, 
Is in her grave, 
Low in her grave. 

That music of the early year 

Brings tears of anguish to my eyes ; 
My heart aches when the flowers appear ; 
. For then I think of her who lies 

Within her grave, 
Low in her grave. 
The May Sun Sheds an Amber Light. 



40 WILLIAM CULLEN BKYANT 

Iii 1874, the citizens of New York, the press and 
the friends and admirers of Bryant, met to devise some 
way in which to honor his eightieth birthday. The re- 
sult was the decision that a silver vase, representing in 
its design the life and writings of the poet, be pre- 
sented to him, but placed eventually in the Metropoli- 
tan Museum of Art. Nearly two years elapsed before 
the vase was finished. The presentation took place at 
Chickering Hall, New York, June 20, 1876. The vase 
was exhibited at the Centennial Exhibition at Phila- 
delphia in 1876. It is now at the Metropolitan Museum. 
It cost five thousand dollars, and is most exquisite in 
design and workmanship. Encircling the neck, in the 
form of an ornamental border, is his famous line, " Truth 
crushed to earth shall rise again." 

An illustrated edition of Bryant's poems, containing 
all that he thought worth preserving, was published in 
1876. Among his later poems that became great favor- 
ites are Planting the Apple Tree, Among the Trees, The 
Song of the Sower, The Wind and the Stream, To the 
Fringed Gentian, The Path, Pag Preams, The Land of 
Preams, and the two fairy pieces, Sella and The Little 
People of the Snow. The last poem is the story of a 
little girl, Eva, who is enticed away by a fairy. She 
travels far over the glistening snow, and reaches a 
frost palace, through the ice windows of which she may 
look and watch the revels of the fairies, but into whose 
palace she may not enter, because she is a mortal child. 

And in that hall a joyous multitude 
Of these by whom its glistening walls were reared, 
Whirled in a merry dance to silvery sounds, 



SUMMER WIND 41 

That rang from cymbals of transparent ice, 
And ice-cups, quivering to the skillful touch 
Of little lingers. Round and round they flew, 
As when, in spring, about a chimney-top, 
A cloud of twittering swallows, just returned, 
Wheel round and round, and turn and wheel a<rain, 
Unwinding their swift track. So rapidly 
Flowed the meandering stream of that fair dance 
Beneath that dome of light. Bright eyes that looked 
From lily- brows, and gauzy scarfs 
Sparkling like snow-wreaths in the early sun, 
Shot by the window in their mazy whirl. 

The Little People of the Snow. 

Bryant gives in A Winter Piece, Summer Wind, 
Innocent Child and Snoiv-ivhite Floiver and To the 
Fringed Grentian exquisite pictures of nature. 

SUMMER WIND 

It is a sultry day ; the sun has drunk 
The dew that lay upon the morning grass ; 
There is no rustling in the lofty elm 
That canopies my dwelling, and its shade 
Scarce cools me. . All is silent, save the faint 
And interrupted murmur of the bee, 
Settling on the sick flowers, and then again 
Instantly on the wing. The plants around 
Feel the too potent fervors : the tall maize 
Rolls up its long green leaves ; the clover droops 
Its tender foliage, and declines its blooms. 
But far in the fierce sunshine tower the hills, 
W T ith all their growth of woods, silent and stern, 
As if the scorching heat and dazzling light 
Were but an element they loved. Bright clouds, 
Motionless pillars of the brazen heaven — 
Their bases on the mountains — their white tops 



42 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

Shining in the far ether — fire the air 

With a reflected radiance, and make turn 

The gazer's eyes away. For me, I lie 

Languidly in the shade, where the thick turf, 

Yet virgin from the kisses of the sun, 

Retains some freshness, and I woo the wind 

That still delays his coming. Why so slow, 

Gentle and voluble spirit of the air? 

Oh, come and breathe upon the fainting earth 

Coolness and life. Is it that in his caves 

He hears me? See, on yonder woody ridge, 

The pine is bending his proud top, and now 

Among the nearer groves, chestnut and oak 

Are tossing their green boughs about. He comes ; 

Lo, where the grassy meadow runs in waves ! 

The deep distressful silence of the scene 

Breaks up with mingling of unnumbered sounds 

And universal motion. He is come, 

Shaking a shower of blossoms from the shrubs, 

And bearing on their fragrance ; and he brings 

Music of birds, and rustling of young boughs, 

And sound of swaying branches, and the voice 

Of distant waterfalls. All the green herbs 

Are stirring in his breath ; a thousand flowers, 

By the road-side and the borders of the brook, 

Nod gayly to each other ; glossy leaves 

Are twinkling in the sun, as if the dew 

Were on them yet, and silver waters break 

Into small waves and sparkle as he comes. 

Robert of Lincoln is a poem full of bird music. It is 
the best example of Bryant's humor. 

ROBERT OF LINCOLN 

Merrily swinging on brier and weed, 
Near to the nest of his little dame, 



ROBERT OF LINCOLN 43 

Over the moimtain-side or mead, 

Robert of Lincoln is telling his name : 
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, 
Spink, spank, spink ; 
Snug and safe is that nest of ours, 
Hidden among the summer flowers. 
Chee, chee, chee. 

Robert of Lincoln is gayly drest, 

Wearing a bright black wedding-coat ; 
White are his shoulders and white his crest, 
Hear him call in his merry note : 
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, 
Spink, spank, spink ; 
Look, what a nice new coat is mine, 
Sure there was never a bird so line. 
Chee, chee, chee. 

Robert of Lincoln's Quaker wife, 

Pretty and quiet, with plain brown wings, 
Passing at home a patient life, 

Broods in the grass while her husband sings : 
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, 
Spink, spank, spink; 
Brood, kind creature ; you need not fear 
Thieves and robbers while I am here. 
Chee, chee, chee. 

Modest and shy as a nun is she ; 

One weak chirp is her only note. 
Braggart and prince of braggarts is he, 
Pouring boasts from his little throat : 
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, 
Spink, spank, spink ; 
Never was I afraid of man ; 
Catch me, cowardly knaves, if you can I 
Chee, chee, chee ? 



44 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

Six white eggs on a bed of hay, 

Fleeked with purple, a pretty sight ! 
There as the mother sits all day, 

Robert is singing with all his might : 
Bob-o'-link, bob-o 1 -link, 
Spink, spank, spink; 
Nice good wife, that never goes out, 
Keeping house while I frolic about. 
Chee, chee, chee. 

Soon as the little ones chip the shell, 

Six little mouths are open for food ; 
Robert of Lincoln bestirs him well, 
Gathering seeds for the hungry brood. 
Bob-o'-link, bob-oMink, 
Spink, spank, spink; 
This new life is likely to be 
Hard for a gay young fellow like me. 
Chee, chee, chee. 

Robert of Lincoln at length is made 

Sober with work, and silent with care ; 
Off is his holiday garment laid, 
Half forgotten that merry air : 
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, 
Spink, spank, spink ; 
Nobody knows but my mate and I 
Where our nest and our nestlings lie. 
Chee, chee, chee. 

Summer wanes ; the children are grown ; 

Fun and frolic no more he knows ; 
Robert of Lincoln's a humdrum crone ; 
Off he flies, and we sing as he goes : 
Bob-oUink, bob-o'-link, 
Spink, spank, spink ; 
When you can pipe that merry old strain, 
Robert of Lincoln, come back again. 
Chee, chee, chee. 



DEATH 45 

The Flood of Years was the last long poem that Bry- 
ant wrote. It is religious in tone, and in nature is sug- 
gestive of Thanatopsis, The Ages, Hymn to Death, and 
Among the Trees. The closing lines of this poem are an 
expression of the poet's religious faith. 

Bryant was frequently called upon to deliver ora- 
tions and addresses upon any occasion of public note 
or importance. While performing this office, May 29, 
1878, at the unveiling of the Mazzini bust at Central 
Park, he was overcome by the heat. He did not ap- 
parently feel the effects of the exposure to the sun 
until after the exercises were over and he had reached 
the house of a friend, where he fell unconscious. He 
rallied sufficiently to be taken to his own home, but 
paralysis set in, and after an illness of thirteen days, he 
died June 12, 1878. He was placed in his last resting- 
place at Roslyn, during, as he had once expressed his 
wish, the month of June, while overhead the birds 
sweetly sang and the breezes swept softly through the 
tree-tops. 

I gazed upon the glorious sky 

And the green mountains round, 
And thought that when I came to lie 

At rest within the ground, 
'Twere pleasant, that in flowery June, 
When brooks send up a cheerful tune, 

And groves a joyous sound, 
The sexton's hand, my grave to make, 
The rich, green mountain turf should break. 



There through the long, long summer hours, 
The o-olden light should lie, 



46 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

And thick young herbs and groups of flowers 

Stand in their beauty by. 
The oriole should build and tell 
His love-tale close beside my cell ; 

The idle butterfly 
Should rest him there, and there be heard 
The housewife bee and humming-bird. 

June. 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

1803-1882 



And such I knew, a forest seer, 

A minstrel of the natural year, 

Foreteller of the vernal ides, 

Wise harbinger of spheres and tides, 

A lover true, who knew by heart 

Each joy the mountain dales impart ; 

It seemed that Nature could not raise 

A plant in any secret place, 

In quaking bog, on snowy hill, 

Beneath the grass that shades the rill, 

Under the snow, between the rocks, 

In damp fields known to bird and fox, 

But he would come in the very hour 

It opened in its virgin bower, 

As if a sunbeam showed the place, 

And tell its long-descended race. 

It seemed as if the breezes brought him ; 

It seemed as if the sparrows taught him ; 

As if by some secret sight he knew 

Where, in far fields, the orchis grew. 

Many haps fall in the field 

Seldom seen by wistful eyes ; 

But all her shows did Nature yield, 

To please and win this pilgrim wise. 

He saw the partridge drum in the woods ; 

He heard the woodcock's evening hymn ; 

He found the tawny thrushes' broods ; 

And the shy hawk did wait for him ; 

What others did at distance hear, 

And guessed within the thicket's gloom, 

Was shown to this philosopher, 

And at his bidding seemed to come. 

Woodnotes, 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 



Hast thou named all the birds without a gun ? 

Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk? 

At rich men's tables eaten bread and pulse? 

Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust ? 

And loved so well a high behavior, 

In man or maid, that thou from speech refrained, 

Nobility more nobly to repay ? 

O, be my friend, and teach me to be thine! 

Forbearance. 

The position that Emerson holds in American litera- 
ture, as a writer of prose and poetry, is singularly dif- 
ferent from that of all the writers that preceded him, 
and even of those of his own period. A close study of 
his ancestors and of the surroundings of his early life 
is necessary in order fully to understand the influences 
that shaped his life and molded his genius. The dis- 
tinctive quality of his writings is the spirit that breathes 
through them. It is patient, hopeful and serene, show- 
ing a firm belief in happiness, and seeing the virtue of it. 
He has great faith in the individual, and inspires one 
with hope, courage, self-reliance. All his lines ring with 
the truth of what he says. His style of writing is 
often abrupt, with sudden changes, but the sentences are 
freighted with thought. One must think in order to 
grasp and understand his message. The new thought, 

51 



52 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

the inspiration to right living, which one often gets, is 
well worth the effort required. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson, son of William Emerson, 
minister to the First Church of Boston, was born in 
Boston, May 25, 1803. He was the fourth child and 
third son. 

The old parish house, which was his birthplace, was 
a gambrel-roofed, wooden building, standing in the 
middle of grounds about three acres in extent, at the 
corner of Summer and Chauncy streets. During his 
childhood, this wooden house was replaced by a brick 
one. It set well back from the street, having a larger 
orchard and a garden. 

The southern part of Boston, where the house and 
church stood, was then quite rural. Where the busy 
thoroughfares and great warehouses of the city now 
are, in the days of Emerson's childhood were green 
fields and pastures, and line estates with orchards and 
gardens. The neighborhood was just the right place 
for boys, as there were plenty of open grounds with 
sheds, woodhouses, and an occasional deserted barn. 
Near at hand was a pond where in winter the boys 
learned to skate. Not far distant was the salt water 
with long wharves extending into it, from which the 
boys indulged in fishing. There was also the Common, 
then a playground from end to end. . 

William Emerson, father of Ralph Waldo, was de- 
scended from a long line of preachers, dating back to 
the earliest days of the colonies. One ancestor, the 
Rev. Peter Bulkeley, left England in 1634, and, with 
others, settled Concord, Massachusetts, spending most 



ANCESTORS 53 

of his fortune in pioneer work. His granddaughter 
married the Rev. Joseph Emerson, the pioneer minister 
of Menden. When this village was destroyed by the 
Indians, the Emersons went to Concord. Their son 
Edward married Rebecca Waldo, whence came the name 
of Waldo into the family. The son of this couple, a 
second Rev. Joseph Emerson, married Mary Moody, 
whose father was also a minister. He was a very earn- 
est, almost fanatical student. He kept his son William, 
the grandfather of Ralph Waldo, constantly at his 
books. The only change or rest from study was farm 
work, and even the little time given to this he grudged. 
This William Emerson was the patriot minister of Con- 
cord. He married Phoebe Bliss, daughter of another 
minister. He built the parsonage at Concord, cele- 
brated by Hawthorne in his Mosses from an Old 
Manse. At the breaking out of the Revolution, he 
preached to the minute-men of Concord. In 1776, he 
became chaplain of the army at Ticonderoga, dying in 
a few months from camp fever, at the early age of 
thirty-three years. 

William Emerson left a widow and four children, 
one son and three daughters. His widow married again, 
and another set of children growing up, his son Wil- 
liam was left dependent upon his own efforts. He and 
his sister, Mary Moody, inherited from their father a 
deep love for learning, and a keen enjoyment of literary 
society. William's education was frequently inter- 
rupted by school teaching, by which means he would 
acquire money for still more schooling. Eventually, he 
was graduated from the Cambridge divinity school. 






54 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

When twenty-three years old, William Emerson be- 
came the minister in the town of Harvard. In 1796, 
he married Ruth Haskins. They were very poor, the 
calling at Harvard bringing but a small income ; but 
Mr. Emerson had a very buoyant, cheerful disposi- 
tion, and he and his wife struggled bravely on. Mr. 
Emerson taught school, took boarders and worked on 
the farm. At last something in the form of a release 
from such poverty came in 1799, when he was called to 
preach in the First Church of Boston. Although the 
salary attached to this position was not large, still it 
was much better than that received at Harvard. 

The Rev. Charles Lowell, father of the poet, speaks 
of William Emerson as being a handsome man, tall and 
fair, easy and graceful in movement, with gracious 
manners. He was a social man, enjoying society very 
much, and entertaining considerably for those days. 
He was interested in literature and literary societies. 
He also established several libraries, one at Harvard, 
one at the Boston Athenaeum, and a theological library 
connected with his church. William Emerson died in 
1811, leaving his widow six children to support. 

Mrs. Emerson, the mother of Ralph Waldo, was 
spoken of in the highest terms by all who knew her. 
She displayed under all circumstances a remarkable 
firmness and dignity of character, and a very sweet, 
patient, serene temper. Her manners were gentle and 
graceful, and her speech both kindly and sensible. 

The burden that fell upon Mrs. Emerson at the death 
of her husband was a heavy one. She had no means of 
support for herself and six children. The First Church 



EARLY LIFE 35 

did all they could for her. They continued her hus- 
band's salary for six months, gave her an allowance of 
five hundred dollars for seven years, and the use of the 
parish house for a year and a half. She remained there, 
however, for three years. 

A less expensive place to live in than Boston would 
have been preferred, but Mrs. Emerson wished the 
children to be well educated. With that end in view, 
she kept within reach of the Latin School and Harvard 
College. In order to carry out her plans for her chil- 
dren's education, they all had to make many sacri- 
fices and endure many privations. 

Mrs. Emerson took boarders, and the boys did much 
of the housework. Ralph and Edward had but one 
overcoat between them, and they took turns in wearing 
it. Many of the school children used to annoy and 
torment them by calling out, " Whose turn is it to 
wear the coat to-day ? " The children had little oppor- 
tunity for play. What spare time they had was devoted 
to study or to reading good literature. 

In Domestic Life, Emerson speaks of the pleasures of 
those early days, which were very unlike those of most 
boys. The eager boys would hasten through their 
chores, and hurry into the sitting room to prepare the 
next day's lessons. Often they would steal time to 
read a chapter from some novel they had smuggled 
into the room, though they knew the punishment for 
this forbidden pleasure would surely be extra pages of 
translations or more pages to memorize. Frequently 
they would meet in the school yard, or at some old 
barn or shed, and entertain each other with songs, bits 



56 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

of poetry and orations, or with imitations of some ora- 
tor. There would also be the criticism of the previous 
Sunday's sermon. Another pleasure was the school 
recitation of pieces, learned faithfully at home, and re- 
hearsed again and again, sometimes to the entertain- 
ment, more often to the weariness, of the household. 
There were also the joy and the pride of the first 
literary efforts, the completed translation or composi- 
tion. Theater-going was one of the forbidden pleasures 
in those days, but it was with ke,en delight that the ad- 
vertisements of the arrival of the great actors, Macready, 
Booth or Kemble, were studied and compared. Then, 
too, there was the happiness of reunion after their sepa- 
ration for school or business. Each arrival was a new 
delight, and the boys found great pleasure in relating 
and comparing their various experiences and their bits 
of newly acquired knowledge. 

The tie that held these boys so closely together was, 
Emerson says, " the iron band of poverty, of necessity, 
of austerity," which " directed their activity in safe 
and right channels, and made them, despite themselves, 
reverers of the grand, the beautiful, and the good." 
The angels that dwelt with them were " Toil and Want, 
and Truth and Mutual Faith." 

Emerson w T as a serious-minded child, not at all inter- 
ested in boyish amusements. Though the neighborhood 
in which he lived afforded many opportunities for all 
sorts of outdoor sports, he had little time or inclination 
for play. He never owned a sled, and would have been 
too timid to use one, as his mother had often warned 
him against the rough boys that came to play in the 



MARY MOODY EMERSON 57 

neighborhood. He was different from other boys of his 
own age, and when very young was quite literary in 
his tastes and enjoyments. This seriousness and a 
naturally haughty way of carrying his head — a family 
trait — separated him from his youthful companions, 
many of whom disliked him. His elders thought highly 
of him, and those who knew him best considered him a 
spiritual- looking boy, with a sweet, lovable disposition. 

Beside Mrs. Emerson and the six children, there was 
in the home circle, their aunt, Mary Moody Emerson. 
Emerson always felt for this aunt the deepest reverence 
which he shows in his sketch of her life and character. 
His poem, The Nun's Aspiration, refers to her. She was 
a woman of very singular character, which had a strong 
influence upon the boys, and placed a still greater strain 
upon their already over-taxed minds and bodies. 

Mary Moody Emerson was born shortly before the 
Revolution. Her father, just before the Concord fight, 
carried her to his mother at Maiden. Miss Emerson 
remained with her grandparents, living a very lonely 
life, performing many tasks that were beyond her 
strength, having no young companions, and rarely see- 
ing her brother and sister from Concord. While still 
a girl, her burden was increased by the care of an 
insane aunt. She inherited from her father a keen 
appetite for learning, but had little opportunity in the 
early days to gratify it. She was a quick, irritable, 
keen-witted woman, using her wit to sting rather than 
to amuse. Her peculiarities drove from her many 
whose love she would have treasured. All these traits 
were the result of her sad and lonely life, and of a 



58 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

morbidly religious character which she inherited from 
her ancestors. She accepted, as God's will, the position 
in which her strange character placed her. 

As a young woman, she was frequently called upon, 
in times of sickness and need, by her brothers and 
sisters, in whose families she became much interested. 
She was passionately attached to some of her nephews 
and nieces. 

When her brother William died, she made her home 
with his widow, ready to render what aid she could. 
Emerson highly valued the virtues of this aunt, her 
lofty principles and high aspirations. He felt that to 
have lived within the reach of her influence during his 
childhood was an education that could not be too highly 
valued, and that her peculiar and often irritable dispo- 
sition was far outshone by the high character she re- 
vealed. This aunt was one of the strongest influences 
that helped to shape Emerson's mind and character. 

The austerity of those early days, the absence of all 
play, of association with companions of his own age, 
drove the boy and, later, the man to himself, and made 
it most difficult for him at any time to meet others in 
the ordinary, familiar way. Only the interchange of 
high thoughts and spiritual ideals appealed to him. 

It was not a gloomy household, however, for the 
boys inherited buoyant dispositions and keen wit. The 
natural joyousness of youth too often verged, their 
aunt Mary thought, upon silliness and folly. A cousin 
speaks of the home as being very hospitable and cheer- 
ful, and the boys as bright, intelligent, good talkers, and 
most gracious in their manners. 



EARLY EDUCATION 59 

Emerson went to school when he was three years old, 
which was not nnusnal at that time. What was ex- 
pected of children may be somewhat understood, when, 
two months after he went to school, his father writes 
that Ralph " does not read very well yet " ! This 
school was on Summer street, near the parsonage. 
Later he went to a school kept by a Mr. Lawson Lyon, 
a severe teacher who believed in the free use of both 
rule and cowhide. 

In 1813, Emerson entered the Latin School. As the 
school-house was being rebuilt at the time, the school 
wandered from place to place. At one time, it was held 
at the Mill Pond, then stretches of flat lands. At 
another time, it was held in an attic on Pemberton Hill. 
The head master, Mr. Benjamin Apthorp Gould, was 
considered an excellent teacher, and was held in high 
esteem by his pupils. 

Emerson was looked upon as a studious but not an 
especially brilliant pupil. His compositions were always 
correct, and he early began to be critical in expression. 
He was liked by his companions for his fairness and 
sweet temper, but he was never a favorite, for he rarely 
took part in the athletic sports or boyish fun. 

At about this time, Emerson began to write verses. 
The naval victories of the War of 1812 awakened his 
admiration, and were often the subjects of his verse. 
One long poem, called Fortus, illustrated by his school 
fellow, W. H. Furness, is still in existence. During 
the last year at school, he was often called upon to 
recite " original poems " on exhibition days. His 
brothers were rather proud of this ability to make 



60 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

verses or rhymes, and his letters to them often con- 
tained some poem or bit of verse. 

In 1814, the cost of living in Boston became so ex- 
pensive that the Emersons were forced to leave the 
city. They went to Concord, where they remained for 
a year. Emerson's fondness for rhyming was soon dis- 
covered by his associates at the school in Concord, and 
when he was about to leave they put him on a barrel, 
and made him recite a farewell ode. He took great 
delight, years after, in recalling bits of this ode for the 
amusement of his children. The lines referring to his 
younger brother, Charles, who was attending the same 
school, greatly disgusted that young gentleman, to the 
intense amusement of the poet and orator of the 
occasion. 

On their return to Boston, they occupied a house on 
Beacon street, near the present site of the Boston 
Athenaeum. In the back yard they kept a cow which 
they had brought from Concord, and which Emerson 
used to drive around the Common to some pasture land 
belonging to his mother. He describes this new home 
in some amusing verses to his brother, Edward, who 
was at boarding-school. 

In August, 1817, Emerson entered Harvard College. 
It was thought at first that he would have to defer his 
college education, as his family had not then the means 
to meet the expense, but through Mr. Gould, his former 
teacher, he received the appointment of President's 
freshman, which gave him, without charge, lodgings in 
the President's house. He was also made waiter at 
Commons, which relieved him of three fourths of the 



COLLEGE LIFE 61 

expense of his board. He received money from one 
of the scholarship funds, and from a fund for needy- 
scholars connected with the First Church. In this way, 
his expenses were met. During the first year in col- 
lege, he did some private teaching, thus making a little 
more money. 

The college studies never received from Emerson the 
attention which he should have given them, and which 
the college authorities expected. He was industrious, 
but in his own way. He read a great deal, and his 
note books were filled with quotations, favorite expres- 
sions, and copies of parts of his aunt Mary's letters, 
whose style he greatly admired and closely imitated. 
His interest in literature increased, and he worked 
earnestly on composition. During his junior year, he 
won three prizes, two for composition, and one for 
declamation. This last prize was thirty dollars, which 
he took home with expectations of great happiness, 
hoping it would buy his mother a much needed shawl. 
He was keenly disappointed when he learned that it 
was used to pay the baker's bill. 

Aside from his literary efforts, Emerson passed 
through the college course without distinction, stand- 
ing at the close at about the middle in a class of fifty- 
nine. He was made poet on Class Day, and received 
one of the twenty-nine commencement parts. He was 
graduated in 1821. 

Emerson is described as being, at that time, a deli- 
cate, slender youth, younger than most of his class- 
mates, with a sensitive, retiring nature. Although his 
brother William was in the senior class, and introduced 



62 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

him to his associates and to college life, and though his 
duties as President's freshman brought him in contact 
with almost every member of the college, still he became 
acquainted very slowly. The noisy ways of his com- 
panions were distasteful to him, and equally so to them 
was the nearness of his room to the President's. Gradu- 
ally the more thoughtful boys sought him, rinding that 
if he knew less than they about college text-books, he 
knew more about general literature. Moreover, he 
could write poetry, and he was frequently called upon 
to do so for the various college occasions. Although 
his quiet nature kept him from joining the college 
societies, still he was genial and mirthful, though never 
boisterous, and was fond of telling and hearing a good 
story. He was well liked by classmates and professors. 

The class of 1821 held its annual reunions at Cam- 
bridge for fifty years. As Emerson always lived near, 
he regularly attended these meetings. He looked after 
the more unfortunate members of the class, helping 
them when he could, or getting others to assist them. 

Emerson's plan was to teach school after leaving 
college, and to study for the ministry at the same time, 
though his real ambition was to be a college professor 
of rhetoric and oratory. No such position was ever 
offered to him. He so disliked the school teaching 
that it became a source of great unhappiness to him. 
He was doing what his father and grandfather had 
done before him, but in a very different spirit. He 
took so dismal a view of his work, that it crushed all 
his hope. The different periods of his teaching were 
the gloomiest ones of his life. 



TEACHING 63 

Emerson did some teaching while in college. After 
graduation, he renewed this much disliked occupation, 
but under more favorable circumstances. His brother 
William had established a school for young ladies in 
his mother's house in Boston, and he became William's 
assistant for two years, and for one year had full 
charge, his brother going abroad to study for the min- 
istry. The income derived from his teaching during 
these three years was a very good one for those days. 
By means of it, he was enabled to aid his mother and 
brothers, and to urge William to prolong his stay in 
Europe. 

Emerson's other teaching was taking one or two 
pupils in his home, teaching a public school for a few 
months, and taking charge of his brother Edward's 
school, he having been compelled by ill health to give 
up his law studies, and to take a sea voyage. He also 
had a school of his own in Boston for a short time. 
This last ended his distasteful work. 

Though teaching was so uncongenial to him, yet 
Emerson's pupils and their parents were well satisfied. 
His sweet nature attracted his pupils, he had a strong 
moral influence upon them, and he took a great interest 
in them and their lives aside from their school work. 

As a man, Emerson was as retiring and exclusive as 
when a boy. He shunned society, finding his greatest 
happiness in companionship with his brothers, especially 
Edward and Charles. He also enjoyed corresponding 
with his classmates. 

The tie between the five brothers was very close. 
Their hard struggle with poverty during childhood and 



64 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

youth, their noble ambitions and their brave efforts to 
realize them, brought them into such close sympathy 
that no one else could possibly take their place in one 
another's life. Unfortunately, their physical strength 
was not equal to the tasks they laid upon it. An in- 
herited luug disease showed itself in Waldo, Edward 
and Charles when each was about thirty years old, from 
which Edward and Charles died. Their only sister, 
Mary, had died in 1814. Bulkeley* whose mind had 
never developed, though he was a boy of fine character, 
left the home circle in 1825, being placed in the care 
of others. Edward was a more brilliant man than 
Waldo. He was remarkably handsome, eloquent and 
talented, and was a great favorite in society. His am- 
bitions and his hard work to gratify them, were too 
much for his strength, and his health completely broke 
in 1828. He was forced to give up all study, and to 
make his home in Porto Rico, where he died in 1834. 
Of his death Emerson wrote : " I am bereaved of a 
part of myself." 

Charles seems to have been the closest friend, the 
most dearly loved of all the much loved brothers. He 
died in 1836. His death left a void in Emerson's life 
that none other could fill. In Peter's Field and the 
Dirge, he writes most tenderly of them all. 

Five rosy boys with morning light 

Had leaped from one fair mother's arms, 

Fronted the sun with hope as bright, 

And greeted God with childhood's psalms. 



STUDYING FOR THE MINISTRY 65 

But the j are gone, — the holy ones 
Who trod with me this lovely vale ; 

The strong, star-bright companions 
Are silent, low and pale. 

My good, my noble, in their prime, 
Who made this world the feast it was, 

Who learned with me the lore of time, 
Who loved this dwelling-place ! 

Dirge. 

Emerson dearly loved the country because it brought 
him so near to nature. He enjoyed any sojourn, how- 
ever short, away from the city. In 1823, the Emer- 
sons lived for awhile just out of the city of Boston, 
in a woodland district of rocks, hills and woods, 
much to Emerson's delight. Here he wrote his poem 
Gcood-Bye. In it he bids farewell to the world, and 
promises to go home to nature, to the hills and the 
rocks and the pines, to the blackbird's song, to a 
close communion with self and God. In Woodnotes 
and in My Garden, he expresses most delightfully his 
love for nature, and the knowledge and help he obtains 
in his close study of her. In this woodland retreat 
they remained until February, 1825. Emerson then 
went to Cambridge, entering the Divinity School. 

He began his preparation for the ministry in a very 
earnest spirit, seeking advice and aid from those whose 
opinion he valued, and whose position and experience 
seemed to fit them to give the help needed. He was 
not troubled by doubts about his religious belief, but 
his desire was, if he were to teach others, to be able 
to give them reasons that justified his faith. 



66 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

His health began to fail him about this time, and his 
studying, and afterward his preaching, were often inter- 
rupted by illness. In October, 1826, he was quali- 
fied to preach, and a few days after, he preached his 
first sermon at Waltham. His ill health, however, 
forced him to take a trip South, from which he returned 
in June, 1827, joining his mother who was staying at 
the Concord Manse. Later he again established him- 
self at Divinity Hall, Cambridge. 

While on his trip South, Emerson did some preaching 
in the Unitarian churches in the different cities he 
visited. On his return, he frequently acted as a sub- 
stitute, but his health did not permit regular work. 
Since he' was not equal to preaching every Sunday, he 
thought of giving up the ministry, and returning to 
teaching. Not having the courage to do this, he decided 
to remain in Cambridge, do what he could in the way of 
preaching and attending lectures, and wait for better 
health and better days. He remained there a year, 
gaining in health slowly, and gradually doing more con- 
tinuous work. 

In March, 1829, Emerson was ordained minister of 
the Second (Unitarian) Church of Boston. As a min- 
ister, he won many admirers, especially among the 
young. His great charm was the simple style of his 
sermons, and his ability to make his hearers feel that^ 
religion was something very real and a part of their 
every day life. 

Only two of Emerson's sermons are published, one 
being the sermon on the Lord's Supper, which he deliv- 
ered when he resigned his charge of the Second Church 



HIS FIRST WIFE 67 

in the summer of 1832. The resignation was due to a 
difference of opinion between himself and the church, 
concerning the rites of the Lord's Supper. The church 
was anxious to retain him, but he felt that he could 
not administer a form of worship in which he had no 
faith. This ended his regular work as a minister, 
though he continued to preach at various times for 
many years after. 

Emerson's sermons were frequently criticised by those 
not accustomed to such startling and broad applications 
of divine truths, as having a tendency to unsettle the 
Christian faith. Nothing was farther from his thoughts. 
His faith in the Christian religion was absolute. He 
simply made a broader, more generous application of its 
truths, feeling that they did not belong to any partic- 
ular sect or creed. 

While preaching at Concord, New Hampshire, in 
1827, Emerson met Miss Ellen Tucker, who afterward 
became his wife. Miss Tucker was very frail, but her 
brave and cheerful disposition easily misled others, 
even those who knew her best, concerning her health. 
She was considered by all to be a very attractive char- 
acter. To Ellen is a dainty poem, in which the spring 
at the North bids her return from the South. 

The green grass is bowing, 

The morning wind is in it ; 
T is a time worth thy knowing, 

Though it change every minute. 



Hark to the winning somid ! 
They summon thee, dearest, 



68 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

Saying, 'We have dressed for thee the ground, 
Nor yet thou appearest. 

< O come, then, quickly come ! 

We are budding, we are blowing; 
And the wind that we perfume 

Sings a tune that's worth the knowing.' 

To Ellen. 

The death of his wife early in 1831, was a sorrow 
from which he could not seem to rally. His health 
broke down under the strain, and, at the suggestion of 
his friends, he sailed for Europe, December 25, 1832, 
hoping the sea voyage would restore his health. 

While abroad, he met General Lafayette, and visited 
the poets Coleridge and Wordsworth. He also went to 
Scotland to see Carlyle, between whom and himself was 
formed a life-long friendship. During this year spent 
abroad, his health steadily improved. A brief account 
of this visit is given in English Traits, published in 
1856. The general topics are Land, Race, Ability, Man- 
ners. His thoughts are fresh and original, and show 
keen observation. He is full of admiration for the Eng- 
lish, but is not blind to their faults or shortcomings. 

Upon his return from Europe, Emerson lived for 
about a year with his mother at Newton, indulging 
again in long, solitary rambles in the woods. They 
left Newton in 1831, again visiting the old Manse at 
Concord. Here Emerson's wanderings came to an end, 
for, becoming engaged to Miss Lydia Jackson of Plym- 
outh, in the winter of 1835, he determined to make 
Concord his home. 



70 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

Concord was peculiarly attractive to Emerson. Here 
his forefathers had their home, and here, during child- 
hood, he and his brothers had often visited the Manse, 
and taken long tramps through the Waiden woods, over 
Dr. Ripley's hill and Peter's field. His poem, Peter s 
Field, describes the memories and associations which a 
walk over this field by the Concord river recalls. 

The old Manse, made famous by Hawthorne, is an 
old-fashioned gambrel-roofed house, standing close to the 
scene of the Concord fight, near the river. In one of 
the rooms, Emerson wrote his book on Nature, and in 
the same room some years later, Hawthorne wrote 
Mosses from an Old Manse, in which is an excellent de- 
scription of this old parsonage of the Emerson family. 

Concord is a beautiful New England town. In the 
neighborhood are fine woods, beautiful ponds, and 
through the meadows flow quiet streams, which later 
join the Merrimac. At a distance can be seen the sum- 
mits of Monadnock and Wachusett. Woodnotes, Mo- 
nadnock, Musketaquid (the latter the Indian name of 
one of the streams), My Garden and Waiden, all voice 
the pleasure and inspiration Emerson drew from the 
beauties of nature which surrounded his Concord home. 

Because of his contemplated marriage, Emerson de- 
termined to leave the Manse and build a home of his 
own. Instead, he purchased the Coolidge house, a 
plain, square, wooden building, large and hospitable- 
looking. A long hall divides it in the middle. On the 
right was Emerson's library, a large, square room, 
plainly furnished, but made pleasant by pictures and 
sunshine. His study was a room up stairs. The house 



MY GARDEN 71 

is on the outskirts of the village, with plenty of open 
ground sloping to the meadow through which a brook 
flowed. There is also a distant view of the Lincoln 
hills. He owned a wood lot on the west shores of 
Walden Pond. These woods were a source of great 
pleasure to Emerson, and are the subject of both Wal- 
den and My Garden. 

If I could put my woods in song 
And tell what 's there enjoyed, 
AH men would to my gardens throng, 
And leave the cities void. 

In my plot no tulips blow, — 
Snow-loving pines and oaks instead ; 
And rank the savage maples grow 
From Spring's faint blush to Autumn red. 

My garden is a forest ledge 

Which older forests bound ; 

The banks slope down to the blue lake-edge, 

Then plunge to depths profound. 

Keen ears can catch a syllable, 

As if one spake to another, 

In the hemlocks tall, untamable, 

And what the whispering grasses smother. 



Canst thou copy in verse one chime 
Of the wood-beirs peal and cry, 
Write in a book the morning's prime, 
Or match with words that tender sky ? 

Wandering voices in the air 
And murmurs in the wold 
Speak what I cannot declare, 
Yet cannot all withhold. 

My .Garden. 



72 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

In September, 1835, Emerson married Miss Lydia 
Jackson, and brought her to his Concord home. Here 
he lived an orderly, methodical life, using his mornings 
for his writing, taking long walks in the afternoons, 
and devoting himself to his family in the evenings. 

In the autumn of 1836, his first child, a beautiful 
boy, was born. Waldo became his father's constant 
companion, staying for hours in the study, playing with 
some little toy and never interrupting his father's work. 
He died when he was five years old. In Threnody, Em- 
erson expresses but in part his love for this child, and 
his great grief over his loss. 

I see my empty house, 

I see my trees repair their boughs ; 

And he, the wondrous child, 

Whose silver warble wild 

Outvalued every pulsing sound 

Within the air's cerulean round, — 

The hyacinthine boy, for whom 

Morn might well break and April bloom, — 

The gracious boy, who did adorn 

The world whereinto he was born, 

And by his countenance repay 

The favor of the loving Day, — 

Has disappeared from the Day's eye ; 

Far and wide she cannot find him ; 

My hopes pursue, they cannot bind him. 

Returned this day, the south wind searches, 

And finds young pines and budding birches ; 

But finds not the budding man ; 

Nature, who lost, cannot remake him ; 

Fate let him fall, Fate can't retake him ; 

Nature, Fate, men, him seek in vain. 



HIS CHILDREN 73 

Ah, vainly do these eyes recall 
The school-march, each day's festival, 
When every morn my bosom glowed 
To watch the convoy on the road ; 
The babe in willow wagon closed, 
With rolling eyes and face composed; 
With children forward and behind, 
Like Cupids studiously inclined ; 
And he, the chieftain, paced beside, 
The center of the troop allied, 
With sunny face of sweet repose, 
To guard the babe from fancied foes. 

Now Love and Pride, alas ! in vain, 

Up and down their glances strain. 

The painted sled stands where it stood ; 

The kennel by the corded wood ; 

His gathered sticks to stanch the wall 

Of the snow-tower, when snow should fall ; 

The ominous hole he dug in the sand, 

And childhood's castles built or planned ; 

His daily haunts I well discern, — 

The poultry -yard, the shed, the barn, — 

And every inch of garden ground 

Paced by the blessed feet around, 

From the roadside to the brook 

Whereinto he loved to look. 

Step the meek fowls where erst they ranged ; 

The wintry garden lies unchanged ; 

The brook into the stream runs on ; 

But the deep -eyed boy is gone. 

Threnody. 

Emerson devoted much of his time to his children, 
from their earliest infancy. He showed a deep interest 
in their pleasures and their sorrows, in their school life 



74 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

and their associates, and they, in turn, treated him with 
the same frankness as if he were one of their own age. 
He early taught them to be self-reliant. On Sun- 
day afternoons, he would take them on long tramps, 
showing them pretty places, or flowers, or revealing to 
them some secret of the woods that he had discovered 
in his rambles during the week. His ways with chil- 
dren were very sweet and winning. 

Shortly after his return from Europe, during the 
winter of 1833-1834, Emerson began to lecture. His 
first lectures were upon subjects connected with natu- 
ral science, and upon his trip to Europe. During the 
next winter, he delivered in Boston ten lectures upon 
English literature. He at once became a favorite. As 
Emerson became accustomed to lecturing, he chose sub- 
jects more to his tastes and habit of thought. His first 
lectures were not published. 

It is as lecturer and essayist that Emerson first 
attracted general attention, and is best known and 
remembered. His subjects are always treated in his 
original manner, and, however old, presented in a new 
light, with added beauty and strength. What w T as 
purest, noblest, best in human nature interested and 
occupied his thoughts. Truth and beauty and virtue 
were one to him, and nature was the expression and 
indication of it. He was like his Humble-Bee, 

" Seeing only what is fair, 
Sipping only what is sweet, 
Thon dost mock at fate and care, 
Leave the chaff, and take the wheat." 



76 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

What Emerson said of another, " He was not a citi- 
zen of any country, he belonged to the human race," 
may well be said of him. His purpose was to raise the 
idea of man, and he inspired others, making life purer, 
sweeter, nobler and brighter. His deep and sweet 
humanity won him love everywhere. 

In giving up the ministry for a doubt, Emerson sac- 
rificed a life of comparative ease, his position, and his 
intimates, and began a life of hard, trying work, with 
always uncertain and poor pay. For forty years he 
lectured and published lectures. He spoke in great 
cities and gathered about him the most cultivated audi- 
ences. He spoke in small towns and villages, and 
though his hearers lacked much in the way of educa- 
tion, he made himself understood. Wherever he ap- 
peared, he fascinated the people with his charm of 
voice and manner. He early won the admiration of 
the ablest thinkers and scholars of Europe. 

Emerson's lectures later developed into essays, unfor- 
tunately retaining many of the faults of form due to 
the demands of a lecture room. When the best of 
one's thoughts is to be crowded into an hour's talk, and 
presented in a vivid, attractive manner, short sen- 
tences, abrupt changes, and unfinished thoughts will 
appear. His choice of subjects was very large, reach- 
ing from the highest spiritual truths down to the most 
ordinary affairs of life. 

Nature, a book of about one hundred pages, which 
was published in 1836, was the first real indication of 
Emerson's genius. The book did not obtain many 
readers, for it took twelve years to sell five hundred 



ESSAYS 77 

copies. It is a very beautiful essay, in which Emerson 
expresses, for the first time, the feelings which the vari- 
ous aspects of nature awakened in him. It is noble 
and inspiring, full of elevated thought, and showing 
both spiritual and poetic beauty. 

The American Scholar is another remarkable essay, 
which was delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, 
iii Cambridge, August, 1837. This oration was listened 
to with the deepest interest. In it are expressed all of 
Emerson's leading ideas. In fact, in these two dis- 
courses will be found all the principles of his moral 
teachings. He believed in culture, in self-reliance, in 
the divine in man and nature, and in the need of high 
ideals. 

Emerson's first volume of collected essays appeared 
in 1841, and his second collection in 1844. 

Having been invited to lecture in England, Emerson 
made his second visit to Europe in October, 1847. A 
number of these lectures were published in 1850, under 
the title of Representative Men. Conduct of Life ap- 
peared in 1860, and Society and Solitude in 1870. 

Emerson was from the beginning in sympathy with 
the anti-slavery movement. As early as 1837, he deliv- 
ered an address upon slavery, in which he advocated 
free speech in church and lecture room. He found 
great difficulty in getting a place to deliver this lecture, 
but finally the Second Church in Boston permitted him 
to use the vestry room. In 1850, he gave lectures for 
the anti-slavery parties of both Boston and New York. 
He was never in the front rank of the anti-slavery 
party, for at the beginning of the movement, his idea 



78 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

of freeing the slave was quite different from that of the 
abolitionist. His address upon the Emancipation Proc- 
lamation, delivered in 1862, is noble and inspiring. In 
the volume of Miscellanies, there are several essays 
upon war and slavery. Though never indulging in 
personal criticism, his censure of Webster's false leader- 
ship was most severe. His address delivered in Con- 
cord, April, 1865, in memory of Abraham Lincoln, is a 
noble tribute to, and a remarkably fine portrait of, the 
President. The Boston Hymn and Voluntaries, both 
published in 1863, rank among the best poems on the 
subject of slavery. 

Much of Emerson's prose is poetical in thought and 
spirit, and in his poems we frequently find, in merely 
the poetic form, the same feeling or thought that we 
have already enjoyed in his prose. Emerson had no ear 
for music, and though a born poet, he was not a born 
singer, for his verses show a lack of the nice harmonies 
of words and the music of rhyme and rhythm. His best 
lines flow with a careless ease, but with the strength 
and rush at times of a mountain torrent. 

Emerson wrote his poems solely for the pleasure it 
afforded him, and many were not published until sev- 
eral years after they were written. He wrote in a let- 
ter to a friend, that, judging from his old manuscripts, 
he had an annual desire to write poetry. The Humble- 
Bee was published in 1838, The Rhodora and Good-Bye 
in 1839. The latter was written sixteen years before. 

Each and All, The Snow- Storm and The Humble-Bee 
are among his first poems, and are exquisite outbursts 
of song. 



EARLIER POEMS 79 

Burly, dozing humble-bee, 
Where thou art is clime for me. 
Let them sail for Porto Bique, 
Far-off heats through seas to seek; 
I will follow thee alone, 
Thou animated torrid zone ! 
Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer, 
Let me chase thy waving lines ; 
Keep me nearer, me thy hearer, 
Singing over shrubs and vines. 

Hot midsummer's petted crone, 
Sweet to me thy drowsy tone 
Tells of countless sunny hours, 
Long days, and solid banks of flowers ; 
Of gulfs of sweetness without bound 
In Indian wildernesses found. 

Wiser far than human seer, 
Yellow-breeched philosopher ! 
Seeing only what is fair, 
Sipping only what is sweet, 
Thou dost mock at fate and care, 
Leave the chaff, and take the wheat. 

The Humble-Bee. 

Many of Emerson's earlier poems appeared in The 
Dial, a magazine established in 1840, of which he was 
for a time the editor. Among these were The Prob- 
lem and Woodnotes, two of his best and most familiar 
poems. 

When the pine tosses its cones 
To the song of its waterfall tones, 
Who speeds to the woodland walks ? 
To the birds and trees who talks ? 



80 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

Ccesar of his leafy Rome, 
There the poet is at home. 
He goes to the river-side, — 
Not hook nor line hath he ; 
He stands in the meadows wide, — 
Nor gun nor scythe to see. 
Sure some god his eye enchants : 
What he knows nobody wants. 
In the wood he travels glad, 
Without better fortune had, 
Melancholy without bad. 
Knowledge this man prizes best 
Seems fantastic to the rest : 
Pondering shadows, colors, clouds, 
Grass-buds and caterpillar-shrouds, 
Boughs on which the wild bees settle, 
Tints that spot the violet's petal, 
Why Nature loves the number five, 
And why the star-form she repeats : 
Lover of all things alive, 
Wonderer at all he meets, 
Wonderer chiefly at himself, 
Who can tell him what he is ? 
Or how meet in human elf 
Coming and past eternities? 

Come learn with me the fatal song 
Which knits the world in music strong, 
Come lift thine eyes to lofty rhymes, 
Of things with things, of times with times, 
Primal chimes of sun and shade, 
Of sound and echo, man and maid, 
The land reflected in the flood, 
Body with shadow still pursued. 
For Nature beats in perfect tune, 
And rounds with rhyme her every rune, 



THE PROBLEM 81 

Whether she work in land or sea, 

Or hide underground her alchemy. 

Thou canst not wave thy staff in air, 

Or dip thy paddle in the lake, 

But it carves the bow of beauty there, 

And the ripples in rhymes the oar forsake. 

The wood is wiser far than thou ; 

The wood and wave each other know 

Not unrelated, unaffied, 

But to each thought and thing allied, 

Is perfect Nature's every part, 

Rooted in the mighty Heart. 



Woodnoies. 



I like a church ; I like a cowl ; 

I love a prophet of the soul ; 

And on my heart monastic aisles 

Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles : 

Yet not for all his faith can see 

Would I that cowled churchman be. 

Why should the vest on him allure, 

Which I could not on me endure ? 

Not from a vain or shallow thought 

His awful Jove young Phidias brought ; 

Never from lips of cunning fell 

The thrilling Delphic oracle ; 

Out from the heart of nature rolled 

The burdens of the Bible old ; 

The litanies of nations came, 

Like the volcano's tongue of flame, 

Up from the burning core below, — 

The canticles of love and woe : 

The hand that rounded Peter's dome 

And groined the aisles of Christian Rome 

Wrought in a sad sincerity ; 



82 RALPH AVALDO EMERSON 

Himself from God lie eould not free ; 
He builded better than he knew ; — 
The conscious stone to beauty grew. 

Know^st thou what wove yon woodbinVs nest 
Of leaves, and feathers from her breast? 
Or how the fish outbuilt her shell, 
Painting with morn each annual cell ? 
Or how the sacred pine tree adds 
To her old leaves new myriads ? 
Such and so grew these holy piles, 
Whilst love and terror laid the tiles. 

The Problem. 

A number of Emerson's poems were published in The 
Atlantic Monthly. In 1846, appeared his first volume of 
poems, several of which had been published long before. 
They were merely collected and put in book form. 
A second volume was published in 1867, under the 
title of May-Day and Other Poems. 

Many of Emerson's poems are remarkable for the 
beauty of their descriptive portions. The Concord 
Hymn, written in 1836-, and sung at the unveiling of 
the Concord monument, erected in honor of the minute- 
men of the Revolution, is a poem that is almost fault- 
less. It is compact, expressive, solemn, musical. 
Threnody, written in memory of his first boy, compares 
well with the finest memorial poems in our language. 

Terminus, published in 1867, was the first sign Em- 
erson gave that he felt he was growing old. 

Parnassus was published in 1874. It was a collec- 
tion of poems by British and American authors. This 
work was the result of a life habit of copying into a 



84 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

note-book any poem that pleased him. Many of them 
had been used to illustrate his lectures. 

Emerson has written, " The great poets are judged 
by the frame of mind they induce." If this be the test, 
then he is one of the great poets, for his poems lift the 
reader into a higher region of thought and feeling. 
" The greatest poet is not he who has done the best; it 
is he who suggests the most; he, not all of whose 
meaning is at first obvious, and who leaves you much 
to desire, to explain, to study ; much to complete in 
your turn." 

In July, 1872, the upper portion of Emerson's house 
and many valuable papers were destroyed by tire. The 
shock hastened the loss of his memory, which had 
already begun to fail him. After the fire, he again 
worked for awhile in the old Manse. 

In October, Emerson made a third trip to Europe, 
taking with him his daughter Ellen. While he was 
absent, his loving friends in Concord rebuilt his house. 
When the Ernersons returned in May, 1873, his friends 
met him and drove him to his restored home, much to 
his surprise and grateful pleasure. 

The decline of Emerson's faculties was gradual and 
gentle. It was " the twilight of a long bright day." 
The end of his working life was really in 1867, for after 
that much of his work was the collecting and arranging 
of manuscripts, and preparing them for publication. 
His daughter Ellen was his ever faithful and watchful 
companion. She assisted him in his work with his 
manuscripts, and aided the failing memory, supplying 
the word almost before its need was felt, beino- often 



DEATH 



85 



" the echo before the voice." With her help and sup- 
port, Emerson was able, in these last years, to occasion- 
ally read a paper before a small audience. 




emerson's grave 

In April, 1882, Emerson took a severe cold, which 
developed into pneumonia. After a few days' illness, 
he died, April 27, 1882. He lies at rest in the Sleepy 
Hollow Cemetery in Concord. A great pine stands at 
the head of the grave, and a huge, unhewn block of 
pink granite is his monument. Not far away lies Haw- 
thorne, and near him, Thoreau. 



86 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

As sunbeams stream through liberal space 
And nothing jostle or displace, 
So waved the pine tree through my thought 
And fanned the dreams it never brought. 

. . . Nature ever faithful is 

To such as trust her faithfulness. 

When the forest shall mislead me, 

When the night and morning lie, 

When sea and land refuse to feed me, 

'T will be time enough to die; 

Then will yet my mother yield 

A pillow in her greenest field, 

Nor the June flowers scorn to cover 

The clay of their departed lover. 

Wbodnoles. 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

1809-1849 



From childhood's hour I have not been 
As others were — I have not seen 
As others saw — I could not bring 
My passions from a common spring — 
From the same source I have not taken 
My sorrow — I could not awaken 
My heart to joy at the same tone — 
And all I loved — I loved alone. 

Alone. 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 



Know thou the secret of a spirit 
Bowed from its wild pride into shame. 

yearning heart ! I did inherit 
Thy withering portion with the fame, 

The searing glory which hath shone 

Amid the Jewels of my throne, 

O craving heart, for the lost flowers 
And sunshine of my summer hours ! 
The undying voice of that dead time, 
With its interminable chime, 
Rings, in the spirit of a spell, 
Upon thy emptiness — a knell. 

Tamerlane. 

Most of our great poets have pictured, in the lan- 
guage of verse, the beautiful scenes of nature, the 
charming visions of the imagination, and have ex- 
pressed the ennobling thoughts of the mind, the inspira- 
tion of love and hope. No matter how hard their lot 
I had been, how bitter their experience, they were able 
to look beyond their daily suffering and see the beau- 
ties of life through the eyes of hope ; or, looking back- 
ward, draw from the memory of happier days and write 
the poems which have lightened the burdens of so 
many fellow sufferers — the poems so full of hope, of 
love, of faith. Little of this, however, is to be found 
in the works of Poe. True, hardly one of our other 

91 



92 EDGAR ALLAN POE 

poets experienced such bitter and such constant unhap- 
piness as he did. A nature so sensitive that the 
slightest touch of sorrow or reverse caused him to 
shrink like the sensitive plant, was bound to be bruised 
and buffeted almost beyond bearing when brought in 
contact with the roughness of life. A proud spirit, 
driven by poverty to the seclusion of his own thoughts 
and feelings, he had no intimate friends, and loved 
only two people in the world, his child-wife, Virginia, 
and her mother, Mrs. Clemm. All his works, both 
prose and poetry, with but few exceptions, are filled 
with the bitterness of his own life, made doubly un- 
happy by his morbid imagination which, under happier 
circumstances, might have shown him brighter things. 
His poems are fraught with melancholy and despair, 
and his stories are filled with the gloom and horror of 
his distorted imagination. 

Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, January 19, 
1809. At the time his parents were members of a the- 
atrical company playing at the Federal Street Theatre. 
His grandfather, General David Poe, was born in Ireland, 
and was a descendant of an ancient and highly-con- 
nected family. He was brought to America at a very 
early age, and afterwards distinguished himself in the 
Revolution as a patriotic American. His son, David, 
the father of the poet, studied law with his uncle 
in Georgia, where he had gone for this purpose, but 
seems to have been more interested in the theater, to 
which he devoted much of the time that should have 
been given to study. 

In 1802, in consequence of his frequent visits to the 



PARENTS 93 

theater, he met and fell in love with Elizabeth Arnold, 
a yonthful member of a company then playing in Bal- 
timore. The love, however, does not appear to have 
been mutual, at least at this time, for Miss Arnold was 
married, shortly afterward, to another member of the 
company, C. D. Hopkins, a very popular comedian. 
Elizabeth Arnold was the daughter of an English 
actress of considerable popularity, who first came to 
America in 1796 with her daughter, then a girl of 
about sixteen. 

In the fall of 1804, David Poe abandoned altogether 
his half-hearted efforts to become a lawyer and joined 
the same company to which Miss Arnold (or, as she 
was in private life, Mrs. Hopkins) belonged. He 
never became a popular actor, his love for the stage 
being greater than his ability. In October, 1805, Mr. 
Hopkins died, and in January of the following year, his 
widow and David Poe, still a member of the company, 
were married. They remained in Virginia until May, 
and during the next few months gradually journeyed 
northward, playing in various cities on the way, and 
arrived in Boston in October. 

Here they remained for three years, filling their pro- 
fessional engagements. From newspaper criticisms, the 
only existing record of the Poes' professional career, 
it would appear that Mrs. Poe was by far the more tal- 
ented of the two. She was small and rather pretty, a 
conscientious worker and a singer of considerable abil- 
ity. Her husband, on the contrary, never reached any 
eminence in his profession. Their first child, William 
Henry Leonard, was born in 1807. In 1809, their 



94 EDGAR ALLAK POE 

second child, Edgar, was born in Boston. On the back 
of a picture of "Boston Harbour: Morning, 1808," 
painted by his mother, are the words, " For my little 
son Edgar, who should ever love Boston, the place of 
his birth, and where his mother found her best and 
most sympathetic friends.'" The third child, Rosalie, 
was born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1811, some months 
after the death of David Poe from consumption. 

The family, which for some time had been in more or 
less straitened circumstances, was now in a destitute 
condition. Mrs. Poe's own health was failing fast, and 
on Sunday, December 8, 1811, she died, leaving her 
fatherless children alone in the world. William, the 
eldest, was cared for by his father's friends in Balti- 
more. Edgar was adopted by Mrs. Allan of Richmond, 
a young woman of twenty-five who had no children of 
her own. Rosalie was adopted by a Scotch woman, 
Mrs. McKenzie, a friend of the Allans. 

Edgar Poe was now, for some years, to be known as 
Edgar Allan. It was with some reluctance that Mr. 
Allan admitted the orphan son of the poor actors to his 
home, and then only to please his wife. But the natu- 
rally affectionate nature of the little Edgar, and his 
unusual brightness soon made him the pet of the house- 
hold, and an object of pride, if not of very deep love, 
on the part of his foster father. 

Mr. Allan was a native of Ayrshire, Scotland, and 
had emigrated to the United States, and settled in 
Virginia, where he made considerable money by the 
purchase and export of tobacco. His adopted son en- 
joyed all the luxuries that wealth could buy, and all 



CHILDHOOD 95 

the love a childless wife could bestow. At the age of 
six, he could read, draw and dance, and could recite 
many fine passages of English poetry in a pleasing 
manner, an accomplishment very naturally inherited 
from his mother and father. He was allowed to have 
his own way in almost everything, and to this indul- 
gence was undoubtedly due much of his future unhap- 
piness. He wrote in later years, " I am the descendant 
of a race whose imaginative and easily excitable tem- 
perament has at all times rendered them remarkable ; 
and in my earliest infancy I gave evidence of having 
fully inherited the family character. As I advanced in 
years it was more strongly developed, becoming, for 
many reasons, a cause of serious disquietude to my 
friends, and of positive injury to myself. . . . My 
voice was a household law, and at an age when few 
children have abandoned their leading-strings, I was left 
to the guidance of my own will, and became, in all but 
name, the master of my own actions." 

Poe received his early education at a private school 
in Richmond. He spent the three summers following 
his mother's death with the Allans at the White Sul- 
phur Springs, then the fashionable southern resort. 
Here he rode his pony or romped with his dogs. He 
was a handsome boy, prettily dressed, who was indulged 
in public as a general favorite and petted at home as 
an only child. 

In June, 1815, Mr. Allan sailed for England, accom- 
panied by his wife, her sister and Edgar, then six years 
old. Shortly after their arrival he was placed in the 
Manor House School at Stoke-Newington, a suburb of 



96 EDGAR ALLAN POE 

London. Sometimes he would go to the Allan's house 
in London on Friday and stay till Monday morning, 
when he would return to school. Here, during the 
five years of his stay, he was instructed in the rudi- 
mentary branches of education, and studied French and 
Latin, and became " far better acquainted with history 
and literature than many boys of a more advanced age, 
who had had greater advantages than he had." 

His life at Stoke-Ne wing ton made a very deep im- 
pression on his young mind. Not only the loneliness 
and gloom of the house itself, but the many historic 
associations of the neighborhood, left a lasting image on 
his over-sensitive imagination. In his story of William 
Wilson, written in later } T ears, which is largely autobio- 
graphic, he describes his surroundings and companions 
during these five years at school. 

The house was old and irregular. " The grounds were ex- 
tensive, and a high and solid brick wall, topped with a bed of 
mortar and broken glass, encompassed the whole. This prison- 
like rampart formed the limit of our domain ; be} T ond it we saw 
but thrice a week — once every Saturday afternoon, when, 
attended by two ushers, we were permitted to take brief walks 
in a body through some of the neighboring fields — and twice 
during Sunday, when we were paraded in the same formal man- 
ner to the morning and evening service in the one church of the 
village. Of this church the principal of our school was pastor. 
With how deep a spirit of wonder and perplexity was I wont to 
regard him from our remote pew in the gallery, as, with step 
solemn and slow, he ascended the pulpit! This reverend man, 
with countenance so demurely benign, with robes so glossy and 
so clerically flowing, with wig so minutely powdered, so rigid 
and so vast, — could this be lie who, of late, with sour visage, 
and in snuffy habiliments, administered, ferule in hand, the 



STOKE-NEW1NGTON 97 

Draconian laws of the academy? Oh, gigantic paradox, too 
utterly monstrous for solution ! 

" At an angle of the ponderous wall frowned a more ponder- 
ous gate. It was riveted and studded with iron bolts, and sur- 
mounted with jagged iron spikes. What impressions of deep 
awe did it inspire ! It was never opened save for the three peri- 
odical egressions and ingressions already mentioned ; then, in 
every creak of its mighty hinges, we found a plentitude of mys- 
tery — a world of matter for solemn remark, or for more solemn 
meditation. 

"The extensive enclosure was irregular in form, having 
many capacious recesses. Of these, three or four of the largest 
constituted the playground. It was level, and covered with line 
hard gravel. I well remember it had no trees, nor benches, 
nor anything similar within it. Of course it was in the rear of 
the house. In front lay a small parterre, planted with box and 
other shrubs ; but through this sacred division we passed only 
upon rare occasions indeed — such as a first advent to school or 
final departure thence; or perhaps, when a parent or friend 
having called for us, we joyfully took our way home for Christ- 
mas or Midsummer holidays. 

"But the house! — how quaint an old building was this! — 
to me how veritably a palace of enchantment ! There was 
really no end to its windings — to its incomprehensible subdi- 
visions. It was difficult, at any given time, to say with certainty 
upon which of its two stories one happened to be. From each 
room to every other there were sure to be found three or four 
steps either in ascent or descent. Then the lateral branches 
were innumerable — inconceivable — and so returning in upon 
themselves, that onr most exact ideas in regard to the whole 
mansion were not very far different from those with which we 
pondered upon infinity. During the five years of my residence 
here, I was never able to ascertain, with precision, in what 
remote locality lay the little sleeping apartment assigned to 
myself and some eighteen or twenty other scholars. 

" The schoolroom was the largest in the house — I could not 
help thinking, in the world. It was very long, narrow, and 



98 EDGAR ALLAN POE 

dismally low, with pointed Gothic windows and a ceiling of oak. 
In a remote and terror-inspiring angle was a square enclosure 
of eight or ten feet, comprising the sanctum, 'during hours,' 
of our principal, the Reverend Dr. Bransby. It was a solid 
structure, with massy door, sooner than open which, in the 
absence of the ' Dominie, 1 we would all have willingly per- 
ished by the peine forte et dure. In other angles were two 
other similar boxes, far less reverenced, indeed, but still greatly 
matters of awe. One of these was the pulpit of the ' classical 1 
usher, one of the 'English and mathematical. 1 Interspersed 
about the room, crossing and recrossing in endless irregularity, 
were innumerable benches and desks, black, ancient, and time- 
worn, piled desperately with much-be-thumbed books, and so 
beseamed with initial letters, names at full length, grotesque 
figures, and other multiplied efforts of the knife, as to have 
entirely lost what little of original form might have been their 
portion in days long departed. A huge bucket with water stood 
at one extremity of the room, and a clock of stupendous dimen- 
sions at the other. 11 

At this period of his life when, more than at any 
other time perhaps, he should have been under the in- 
fluence of a mother's love and a genial home life, Poe 
was left very largely to himself. This undoubtedly in- 
creased his natural reserve which helped to isolate him 
from his fellow-men in after years. 

In June, 1820, he left the old school at Stoke-New- 
ington, and returned with the Allans to America, where 
they arrived on the second of August. The next few 
months were spent in what he terms " mere idleness," 
but during this time he wrote many verses and planned 
for future poems. In fact, much of the contents of his 
first published volume was written during this period, 
while he was not yet fifteen years old. 



BOYHOOD 99 

The second year after his return from England, Poe 
was sent to a preparatory academy in Richmond, Vir- 
ginia, kept by John Clarke, a fiery, pompous Irishman 
from Trinity College, Dublin. At this academy Poe, 
who had now resumed his own name, and was known 
as Edgar Allan Poe, continued the studies begun in 
England. In many of these he stood first, although as a 
scholar he was more brilliant than studious. Much of 
his learning was superficial, but his genius supplied any 
shortcomings of an education which was never very 
profound. A good deal of his time, both in and out of 
school, was devoted to writing verses, some of which 
were afterward published either in their original form 
or rewritten. 

In athletic sports, he easily took the lead. The fact, 
however, that his parents had been actors prevented the 
ready acceptance by his aristocratic schoolmates of his 
leadership, which, under other circumstances, would 
have been willingly granted. His companions, sons of 
prominent Southern families, were inclined to look 
down upon an adopted son, dependent upon the gener- 
osity of a foster father. This attitude of his school- 
mates was the cause of most bitter, though proudly 
silent, resentment on the part of Poe, who was then 
and always one whose 

"Soul . . . will still 
Find pride the ruler of its will. 1 ' 

Some reminiscences of his fellow students will be in- 
teresting as showing the impression he made on those 
about him at this time : 

LofC. 



100 EDGAR ALLAN POE 

" In the simple school athletics of those days, when a gymna- 
sium had not been heard of, he was facile princeps (easily first) . 
He was a swift runner, a wonderful leaper, and what was more 
rare, a boxer, with some slight training. I remember, too, that 
he would allow the strongest boy in the school to strike him with 
full force in the chest. He taught me the secret, and I imitated 
him, after my measure. It was to innate the lungs to the utter- 
most, and at the moment of receiving the blow to exhale the air. 
It looked surprising, and was, indeed, a little rough ; but with a 
good breast bone, and some resolution, it was not difficult to 
stand it. For swimming he was noted, being in many of his 
athletic proclivities surprisingly like Byron in his youth. There 
was no one among the schoolboys who would so dare in the 
midst of the rapids of the James River.' 1 . . . 

" Poe, as I recall my impressions now, was self-willed, ca- 
pricious, inclined to be imperious, and though of generous im- 
pulses, not steadily kind, or even amiable; and so what he would 
exact was refused to him. I add another thing which had its 
influence, I am sure. 

" At the time of which I speak, Richmond was one of the most 
aristocratic cities on this side the Atlantic. I hasten to say that 
this is not so now. Aristocracy has fallen into desuetude : times 
having changed, other things pay better. Richmond was cer- 
tainly then very English, and very aristocratic. A school is, of its 
nature, democratic ; but still boys will unconsciously bear about 
them the odor of their fathers' notions, good or bad. Of Edgar 
Poe it was known that his parents had been players, and that he 
was dependent upon the bounty that is bestowed upon an adopted 
son. All this had the effect of making the boys decline his lead- 
ership ; and on looking back on it since, I fancy it gave him a 
fierceness he would otherwise not have had. . . . ,1 

The great English poet, Byron, was in his clay quite 
an athlete and swimmer. He swam the Hellespont, an 
exploit which became famous. Poe, like Byron, was a 
great swimmer. Speaking of one of his own most fa- 
mous feats he says, 



ATHLETIC TASTES 101 

" Any * swimmer in the falls ' in my days would have swum 
the Hellespont, and thought nothing of the matter. I swam 
from Ludlam's Wharf to Warwick (six miles), in a hot June 
sun, against, one of the strongest tides ever known in the river. 
It would have been a feat comparatively easy to swim twenty 
miles in still water." 

According to one of the eye witnesses, « Poe did not 
seem at all fatigued, and walked back to Richmond im- 
mediately after the feat," although his face, neck and 
back were considerably blistered. 

Another daring, if foolhardy, deed was performed in 
midwinter. Poe and a companion entered the almost 
frozen waters of the James river, and succeeded in 
reaching the piles upon which a bridge was built. 
Nearly exhausted, they were anxious to climb up to 
the bridge above, and thus gain the shore, but upon 
reaching the flooring of the bridge, they found to their 
dismay that it extended so far beyond the foundation 
that it was impossible to climb further. Nothing re- 
mained for them to do but to descend, and again enter 
the icy water and return as they had come. This they 
did, Poe reaching the shore in an exhausted condition. 
His companion, about to succumb, was rescued by 
friends in a boat. Both boys were ill for several weeks. 
One of his school fellows writes, 

" At that time Poe was slight in person and figure, but well 
made, active, sinewy and graceful. In athletic exercises he 
was foremost. Especially, he was the . best, the most daring, 
and most enduring swimmer that I ever saw in the water. . . . 
His disposition was amiable, and his manners pleasant and 
courteous.'" 



102 EDGAR ALLAN POE 

During this period of his life, Poe's boyish heart hun- 
gered for affection, a hunger which does not appear to 
have been satisfied at home. Mr. Allan never seems to 
have had any very deep affection for his adopted son, 
and, while Mrs. Allan was undoubtedly devoted to him, 
he could not, in consequence of his studies, spend much 
time at home. In the absence of human love, Poe often 
lavished his affection upon dumb animals. Describ- 
ing a character in one of his later stories, The Black 
Cat, in words which are decidedly autobiographic, he 
writes, 

" From my infancy, I was noted for the docility and human- 
ity of my disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so 
conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions. I was 
especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents 
with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most of my 
time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing 
them. This peculiarity of character grew with my growth, and 
in my manhood I derived from it one of my principal sources of 
pleasure. To those who have cherished an affection for a faith- 
ful and sagacious dog, I need hardly be at the trouble of ex- 
plaining the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus 
derivable. There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrifi- 
cing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who 
has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossa- 
mer fidelity of mere man." 

To those, however, who appealed to his sensitive 
nature through his affections, he gave a love almost 
idolatrous. While at the Academy in Richmond, one 
of his schoolmates invited Poe to his home, where he 
met his young friend's mother, Mrs. Stannard. This 
lady, lovely, gentle and gracious, spoke to the lonely 



TO HELEN 103 

boy with some unusual tenderness which kindled within 
him, as he says " the first purely ideal love of his soul." 
The tone, more than the words, affected him deeply, 
almost depriving him of the power of speech. He re- 
turned home as one in a dream, his one desire being 
to hear her voice again. This lady became the friend 
and confidant of his youth, and it was one of the 
many misfortunes that " followed fast and followed 
faster" in the unhappy life of the poet, that she died 
at the age of thirty-one, April 28, 1824. For a long- 
while he haunted her grave by night, inconsolable for 
the loss of this friend and counselor. The influence 
of her character was felt by him for many years after 
her death. The beautiful poem, To Helen, written in 
manhood, was addressed to her. 

And thou 

Didst glide away. Only thine eyes remained. 
They would not go — they never yet have gone. 
Lighting my lonely pathway home that night, 
They have not left me (as my hopes have) since. 
They follow me — they lead me through the years. 
They are my ministers — yet I their slave. 
Their office is to illumine and enkindle — 
My duty, to be saved by their bright light, 
And purified in their electric fire, 
And sanctified in their elysian fire. 
They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope), 
And are far up in Heaven — the stars I kneel to 
In the sad, silent watches of my night; 
While even iu the meridian glare of day 
I see them still — two sweetly scintillant 
Venuses, unextinguished by the sun ! 

To Helen. 



104 EDGAR ALLAN POE 

A Pcean, written shortly after her death, was also 
doubtless inspired by this sad event. This poem was 
afterwards rewritten and greatly improved, and repub- 
lished under the name Lenore. 

How shall the burial rite be read ? 

The solemn song be sung ? 
The requiem for the loveliest dead, 

That ever died so young ? 

Her friends are gazing on her, 

And on her gaudy bier, 
And weep ! — oh ! to dishonor 

Dead beauty with a tear ! 

Thou diedst in thy life's June — 

But thou didst not die too fair : 
Thou didst not die too soon, 

Nor with too calm an air. 

From more than friends on earth, 

Thy life and love are riven, 
To join the untainted mirth 

Of more than thrones in heaven. — 

Therefore, to thee this night 

I will no requiem raise, 
But waft thee on thy flight, 

With a Paean of old days. 

A Fee an. 

Poe remained at the Academy in Richmond about 
three years, leaving in March, 1825. The master had 
changed during his attendance, William Burke taking 
charge of the Academy in the fall of 1823. 



COLLEGE LIFE 105 

During the following year, Poe prepared for college 
with the aid of private instruction, and on February 14, 
1826, entered the University of Virginia, which was 
founded by President Jefferson. Poe was now seven- 
teen years of age, rather short and thick set, with the 
rapid, jerky gait of an English boy. His natural shy- 
ness had become a fixed reserve, and his face, framed 
by dark curly hair, was grave and melancholy, the re- 
sult of reverie, rather than actual sadness. He writes 
in A Dream within a Dream, 



You are not wrong, who deem 
That my life has been a dream. 



All that we see or seem 
Is a dream within a dream. 

His life at the University differed little in daily de- 
tail from that of his comrades, who divided their time 
between the recitation room, the punch bowl, the card 
table, athletic sports and walking. He was a member 
pi the classes in Latin and Greek, French, Spanish and 
Italian, but never acquired a thorough critical knowledge 
of these languages. Judged by the standards of the 
time and place, Poe's habits gave occasion for no unfa- 
vorable remarks. If he drank and gambled, he was not 
alone, for it was the almost universal practice. During 
the term, Mr. Allan went to Charlottesville to inquire 
personally into the state of his son's affairs. He paid 
all of his debts that he considered just, but refused to 
honor his losses at cards, amounting to about twenty- 
five hundred dollars. At the close of the session, 



FIRST VOLUME OF POEMS 107 

December 15, 1826, Poe came home with the highest 
honors in Latin and French. Mr. Allan, however, did 
not allow him to return to the University, but placed 
him in his own counting-room. The drudgery of busi- 
ness life, however, Poe could not tolerate. He left Mr. 
Allan's home to seek his fortune in the world. 

He made his way to Boston, taking with him the 
manuscripts of his early poems. He persuaded a young 
Boston printer, just starting in business, to publish his 
first volume of verses, which appeared in the spring of 
1827. On the title page was the following inscription : 

TAMERLANE, 

AND 

OTHER POEMS. 

BY A BOSTONIAN. 

" Young heads are giddy, and young hearts are warm, 
And make mistakes for manhood to reform." — Cowper. 

BOSTON : CALVIN S. THOMAS. 

1827. 

The greater part of these first poems, as Poe writes 
in the preface to the volume, " were written in the year 
1821-22, when the author had not completed his four- 
teenth year." But it is probable that they were much 
improved, and some of them rewritten, between this date 
and their final publication, five years later. Tamerlane, 
the longest poem in the volume, contained many fine 
passages, and among the nine shorter poems that fol- 
lowed were some which, while by no means equal to 
Poe's later work, show promise of his budding genius, 
and have been retained in the later editions of his 



108 EDGAR ALLAN POE 

works. Tamerlane was afterward entirely rewritten, 
and it is in this altered form that it now appears. The 
following passage, referring to the hero of the poem, 
may well apply to Poe's own feelings and hopes at that 
time: 

I was ambitious. Have you known 
The passion, father? You have not? 

A cottager, I mark'd a throne 

Of half the world as all my own, 
And murmured at such lowly lot. 

The sale of this first volume was very small, and 
added nothing to Poe's income and little to his fame. 
In a few months he found himself without resources, 
friends or means of support. He could not expect 
assistance from his foster father with whom he had 
quarreled, even if his pride would allow him to ask for 
it. In this extremity, he enlisted, May 26, 1827, in 
the United States Army as a private, under the name 
of Edgar A. Perry. 

He was assigned to Battery H, of the First Artillery, 
then stationed at Fort Independence, Boston Harbor. 
On October 31, the battery was ordered, to Charleston, 
South Carolina, and one year later transferred to Fort- 
ress Monroe, Virginia. 

Poe performed his duties, as company clerk and 
assistant in the commissariat department, to the satis- 
faction of his superior officers. On January 1, 1829, 
he was appointed Sergeant-Major, a promotion never 
made except for merit. 

For two years after leaving Richmond, Poe did not 
communicate with the Allans, and it was not until 



A WEST POINT CADET 109 

some time after reaching Fortress Monroe that he made 
his situation known to Mr. Allan, his purpose being to 
secure an appointment as caclet at West Point. It is 
probable that this was the result of the advice of his 
officers, who had become acquainted with his ability 
and education, and who knew that the only way to fur- 
ther advancement in the army was through West Point. 
It was not, however, until after his wife's death, that 
Mr. Allan took any steps in the matter. Mrs. Allan 
died February 28, 1829, and it is likely that it was in 
consequence of a dying request that Poe was sent for 
by Mr. Allan. He arrived in Richmond a few days 
later, too late, however, to see his foster mother. 

I reached my home — my home no more ; 

For all had flown who made it so. 
I pass'd from out its mossy door, 

And, though my tread was soft and low, 
A voice came from the threshold stone 
Of one whom I had earlier known. . . . 

Tamerlane. 

Mr. Allan secured Poe's discharge from the army 
April 15, 1829, by procuring a substitute, and began 
immediately to get a cadetship for Poe at West Point. 
Armed with various letters of recommendation from 
his former officers in the army and from friends of Mr. 
Allan, Poe journeyed to Washington to present, in 
person, his credentials to the Secretary of War. It 
was not, however, until one year later, that Poe finally 
secured his appointment. 

In the meantime, his pen had not been idle, neither 
had he entirely given up verse writing while in the 



110 EDGAR ALLAN POE 

army. As a result, lie had enough new material with 
which, in addition to some of the poems published in 
his first volume, to make another volume of verse. 
He succeeded in rinding a publisher for this second 
volume of poems which appeared in the latter part of 
1829. The longest of the new poems was Al Aaraaf, 
a tale of another world, Tamerlane, which had appeared 
in his first volume, and several short poems, some new 
and some which had been published in 1827. In a 
letter relating to this volume published in a literary 
gazette previous to the appearance, Poe says, " I am 
young — not yet twenty — am a poet — if deep wor- 
ship of all beauty can make me one — and wish to be 
so in the more common meaning of the word. I would 
give the world to embody one half the ideas afloat in 
my imagination." 

He was now becoming uneasy about his appointment 
to West Point, since he had reached and passed the age 
of twenty-one, the legal limit within which he could be 
appointed. But it was as easy to become two years 
younger as it had been to become two years older when 
he enlisted. Mr. Allan, who was preparing to marry 
again, seems also to have been anxious to settle his 
adopted son, as he hoped, for life, and therefore re- 
newed efforts were made to secure him the cadetship. 
This was accomplished March 31, 1830, and Poe entered 
the Military Academy July 1. His age is recorded as 
nineteen years and five months, although he was really 
over twenty-one, and to the other cadets seemed even 
older. It was jokingly reported among them that " he 
had procured a cadet's appointment for his son, and the 



LIFE AT WEST POINT 111 

boy having died, the father had substituted himself in 
his place." One of his classmates records that he 
was, — 

. . . "of kindly spirit and simple style. He was very shy 
and reserved in his intercourse with his fellow cadets — his asso- 
ciates being confined almost exclusively to Virginians. He was 
an accomplished French scholar, and had a wonderful aptitude 
for mathematics, so that he had no difficulty in preparing his 
recitations in his class, and in obtaining the highest marks in 
these departments. He was a devourer of books, but his great 
fault was his neglect of, and apparent contempt for, military 
duties. His wayward and capricious temper made him at times 
utterly oblivious or indifferent to the ordinary routine of roll 
call, drills and guard duties. These habits subjected him often 
to arrest and punishment, and effectually prevented his learning 
or discharging the duties of a soldier. 1 ' 

Military routine became unbearably tiresome to Poe's 
poetic and dreamy temperament, and doubtless seemed 
worse by the previous year of freedom. At the end of 
six months, he determined to leave the Academy, and 
endeavored to secure the consent of Mr. Allan, his legal 
guardian, to his resignation. This was necessary before 
his resignation could be considered. Mr. Allan refused, 
as he desired that Poe should remain at the Academy 
and prepare for a future occupation into which he could 
enter without further assistance from him. Poe, hav- 
ing abandoned all hope of being Mr. Allan's heir, had 
his own views as to what his future should be. He 
therefore took other means of securing his release from 
West Point. 

On January 5, 1831, a court martial was held at West 
Point to try offenders against discipline. After a short 



112 EDGAR ALLAN POE 

sitting, it was adjourned until January 28. In the 
meantime, Poe neglected practically all his duties as a 
cadet, and was consequently named to appear before the 
court martial. Here he pleaded guilty to all charges 
against him save one which could easily be proved, and 
in this way, closed the door against himself to all offi- 
cial mercy. The result was that in the report of the 
proceedings appears the following : 

" Cadet Edgar A. Poe will be dismissed from the service of 
the United States, and cease to be considered a member of the 
Military Academy after the 6th March, 1831." 

Poe was again free, but penniless, once more his own 
master, but the slave of poverty. 

He had secured a number of subscriptions from his 
fellow cadets to a volume of poems, which he proposed 
to have published in New York, whither he went. 
Because of these subscriptions, he was enabled to get a 
publisher for this volume. The book was published a 
few months later, and caused considerable disappoint- 
ment among the subscribers, who had expected it would 
contain many of the squibs and satires, which had made 
Poe famous at the Academy. Instead of these, it con- 
tained much that had been published in 1829, with 
some new poems added. 

From New York, Poe went to Baltimore, where he 
determined to settle. He tried to secure a position on 
a paper. Failing to get this, he offered himself as 
assistant teacher in a school recently opened by an ac- 
quaintance. Here, again, he was disappointed, and 
was obliged to turn once more to literature for a liveli- 



EARLY STRUGGLES 113 

hood. For eighteen months he struggled on, and, he- 
side other work, wrote six short stories. But he could 
find no publisher for them. In the summer of 1833, 
the Baltimore Saturday Visitor, a newly established 
weekly literary paper, offered two prizes : one of one 
hundred dollars for the best prose tale, and the other 
of fifty dollars for the best short poem. 

Poe immediately sent in the six stories which he had 
ready, and some fifty lines of blank verse from a drama 
he was writing. The judges in this contest, when they 
reached Poe's tales, found them so interesting, that 
they read them all with great pleasure and pronounced 
them better than any others submitted. They immedi- 
ately awarded the first prize of one hundred dollars to 
their author, and selected one, A Ms. Found in a Bottle, 
as the prize story. They also decided that Poe's poem, 
which he had called The Coliseum, was the best sent in 
for competition, but, since he had won the other prize, 
the prize for the best poem went to another competitor. 

Poe's condition at this time was deplorable, although, 
unfortunately, not an uncommon one during his life. 
He was in absolute want, and a letter to Mr. Kennedy, 
one of the three literary judges, who ever afterward be- 
came one of Poe's best friends, will give some idea of 
his condition. 

" Your invitation to dinner has wounded me to the quick, I 
cannot come for reasons of the most humiliating nature — my 
personal appearance. You may imagine my mortification in 
making this disclosure to you, but it is necessary. 1 ' 

The prize-money was consequently most welcome to 
him, and the encouragement hardly less so. The judges 



114 EDGAR ALLAN POE 

highly praised all six tales as characterized by " singular 
force and beauty " and " distinguished by a wild, vigor- 
ous, and poetical imagination, a rich style, a fertile 
invention, and varied and curious learning." 



THE COLISEUM 

Type of the antique Rome ! Rich reliquary 

Of lofty contemplation left to Time 

By buried centuries of pomp and power ! 

At length — at length — after so many days 

Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst, 

(Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie,) 

I kneel, an altered and an humble man, 

Amid thy shadows, and so drink within 

My very soul thy grandeur, gloom, and glory ! 

Vastness ! and Age ! and Memories of Eld ! 
Silence ! and Desolation ! and dim Night ! 
I feel ye now — I feel ye in your strength — 
O spells more sure than e'er Judaean king 
Taught in the gardens of Gethsemane ! 

© © 

O charms more potent than the rapt Chaldee 
Ever drew down from out the quiet stars ! 

Here, where a hero fell, a column falls ! 

Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold, 

© © © ' 

A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat ! 

Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair 

Waved to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle ! 

Here, where on golden throne the monarch lolled, 

Glides, spectre-like, unto his marble home, 

Lit by the wan light of the horned moon, 

The swift and silent lizard of the stones ! 



116 EDGAR ALLAN POE 

But stay ! these walls — these ivy-clad arcades — 

These mouldering plinths — these sad and blackened shafts — 

These vague entablatures — this crumbling frieze — 

These shattered cornices — this wreck — this ruin — 

These stones — alas ! these gray stones — are they all — 

All of the famed, and the colossal left 

By the corrosive Hours to Fate and me ? 

" Not all " — the Echoes answer me — " Not all ! 

Prophetic sounds and loud, arise for ever 

From us, and from all Ruin, unto the wise, 

As melody from Memnon to the Sun. 

We rule the hearts of mightiest men — we rule 

With a despotic sway all giant minds. 

We are not impotent — we pallid stones. 

Not all our power is gone — not all our fame — 

Not all the magic of our high renown — 

Not all the wonder that encircles us — 

Not all the mysteries that in us lie — 

Not all the memories that hang upon 

And cling around about us as a garment, 

Clothing us in a robe of more than glory." 

Poe was able to get along for the next six months by 
contributing to the Saturday Visitor, and by doing 
other literary work secured for him by Mr. Kennedy. 
It was during this summer that he went to live with 
his father's widowed sister, Mrs. Maria Clemm and her 
daughter Virginia, a girl of eleven, these three remain- 
ing together in Baltimore. 

On March 27, 1834, Mr. Allan died. In his will 
Poe was not mentioned. He, who had been educated 
to look upon this man as his father, and led to consider 
himself his heir, at least until the first Mrs. Allan's 



BETROTHAL TO VIRGINIA CLEMM 117 

death, was now left to depend absolutely upon his own 
resources. He continued his literary work and, in the 
early part of 1835, on Mr. Kennedy's recommendation, 
sent some stories to the Southern Literary Messenger, 
recently started in Richmond. He became a constant 
contributor to this paper, and began writing literary 
criticisms, a line of work in which he later became 
famous. In June, the editor, Mr. White, offered Poe a 
position on the paper. This was an opening such as 
Poe had been hoping for, and, although the pay was 
small, he was glad of the opportunity. This made it 
necessary for him to go to Richmond, and he looked 
with keen regret upon the parting from Mrs. Clemm 
and Virginia. 

Mrs. Clemm, during the two years Poe had lived 
with her, had given him more motherly love and care 
than he had ever before known, and he and Virginia, 
now a girl of thirteen, had become greatly attached 
to each other. To give up these two meant a return 
to his former despondent solitude, and as Mrs. Clemm 
had become more or less dependent upon her nephew 
for support, Poe proposed that he and Virginia should 
marry. Mrs. Clemm gave her consent and with this 
understanding, Poe went to Richmond in midsummer. 
He at once entered upon his duties as assistant editor 
at a salary of ten dollars a week, which was a welcome 
opening. 

In September, the news of the engagement between 
Poe and his cousin having come to the ears of their 
relatives, objections were immediately advanced on the 
score of Virginia's youth, she being but thirteen years 



118 EDGAR ALLAN POE 

of age. They attempted to persuade Mrs. Clemm to 
withdraw her consent until her daughter should have 
reached the age of eighteen. The effect of this news 
upon Poe was to almost prostrate him, for Virginia 
and her mother were the only two beings in the world 
for whom he cared. He wrote an earnest appeal to 
Mrs. Clemm, and on September 22, arrived at Balti- 
more in person to plead his cause. The result was that 
with Mrs. Clemm's consent, he and his cousin were 
privately married, and Poe returned to Richmond and 
resumed his duties. Within a few weeks, Mrs. Clemm 
and Virginia also removed to Richmond. 

Poe's devotion to his girl-wife, in fact their mutual 
love, was most complete and beautiful. In one of his 
later poems, Annabel Lee, he writes, 

And this maiden she lived with no other thought 
Than to love and be loved by me. 

I was a child and she was a child, 

In this kingdom by the sea : 
But we loved Math a love that was more than love — 

I and my Annabel Lee ; 
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven 

Coveted her and me. 



But our love it was stronger by far than the love 
Of those who were older than we — 
Of many far wiser than we — 

And neither the angels in heaven above, 

Nor the demons down under the sea. 

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul 
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee : 



criticism: 119 

Poe worked with great earnestness on the magazine 
and soon took entire charge of it. Beside the many 
duties involved in mere editorial work, he contributed 
tales, poems, reviews and many general articles. The 
stories and poems thus contributed are the first impor- 
tant fruits of Poe's ripening genius. It was as a critic 
that he made his most marked success and placed this 
new magazine with which he was connected on an 
equal footing with many long established and foremost 
publications. The circulation increased from seven 
hundred to nearly five thousand during the first six 
months of his editorship. 

While his criticisms were severe, they were, in the 
main, just, but they made him many enemies among 
writers and publishers. It may be said that Poe's fear- 
less reviews were one of the chief obstacles to his suc- 
cess in literary life because of the enemies they made 
him. 

On May 16, 1836, Poe and his wife were publicly 
married to avoid comment, since the first ceremony had 
been so private. Everything was now most hopeful 
for a happy and successful future. His salary had 
been raised to fifteen dollars and after November was 
to be twenty dollars. During the winter, however, he 
became restless. He had worked very hard to establish 
the paper on a profitable basis, and he succeeded be- 
cause of his wonderful stories, beautiful poems and 
brilliant criticisms. He, therefore, felt that what he 
was receiving was out of all proportion to what he 
had accomplished. In January, 1837, therefore, he re- 
signed his post as editor of the Southern Literary 



120 EDGAR ALLAN POE 

Messenger, though friendly relations continued to exist 
between him and the proprietor. 

In a short time, he removed to New York, accom- 
panied by his wife and Mrs. Clemm, who attempted to 
establish a boarding-house but was not altogether suc- 
cessful. Poe could secure no regular literary work, and 
the condition of the little family grew worse and worse. 
One who lived with them at this time, a wealthy old 
Scotch gentleman, writing some years later, says of Poe : 

"I must say that I never saw him the least affected with 
liquor, nor even descend to any known vice, while he was one 
of the most courteous, gentlemanly, and intelligent companions 
I have met with during my journeyings and haltings through 
divers divisions of the globe ; besides, he had an extra induce- 
ment to be a good man as well as a good husband, for he had 
a wife of matchless beauty and loveliness ; with a temper and 
disposition of surpassing sweetness; besides, she seemed as 
much devoted to him and his every interest as a young mother 
is to her first-born. 11 

Mrs. Clemm, the guardian angel of these two, writing 
of this period in after years, says : 

" Eddie was domestic in all his habits, seldom leaving home 
for an hour unless his darling Virginia, or myself, were with 
him. He was truly an affectionate, kind husband, and a de- 
voted son to me. He was impulsive, generous, affectionate 
and noble. His tastes were very simple, and his admiration for 
all that was good and beautiful, very great. . . . We three 
lived only for each other. 11 

During the winter Poe worked principally on the 
Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, a tale of adventure, 



EDITORIAL WORK 121 

• 

horror, shipwreck and mutiny on an expedition to the 
South Pole. This work was announced by the Harpers 
in May, 1838, and published in July, but it had little 
success. In the summer, seeing no hope of better 
things, they moved to Philadelphia, where some en- 
couragement had been offered to Poe. He contributed 
to several magazines, and, during the following winter, 
prepared a school textbook on shells, The ConchologisC '$ 
First Text-Book. This was nothing more than a con- 
densation of a more extensive work published by the 
Harpers. The author of this work, who sanctioned 
Poe's compilation, said that his work proved too ex- 
pensive for the public, and as the Harpers refused to 
bring it out in a cheaper form, it was decided to pub- 
lish a new book which would be sufficiently different 
from the former to escape any suit for the infringement 
of copyright. This book was published in April, 1839. 
Previous to its appearance, Poe had established other 
literary connections, and was a contributor to several 
publications. 

In July, 1839, he became associate editor of Burton's 
Gentleman '« Magazine, in which was published, among 
other contributions of his, The Fall of the House of 
Usher, one of the greatest achievements of his peculiar 
genius for describing terror and fear. Among the 
poems contributed by him was The Haunted Palace, 
which had previously appeared in The Museum. Apart 
from its poetic beauty, this poem caused considerable 
controversy, as Poe claimed that Longfellow's The 
Beleaguered City, which was not published until Novem- 
ber, was a copy of his idea. This was hardly a just 



122 EDGAR ALLAN POE 

accusation ; in fact, both poems are very similar in idea 
to Tennyson's The Deserted House, published in 1830. 

THE HAUNTED PALACE 

In the greenest of our valleys 

By good angels tenanted, 
Once a fair and stately palace — 

Radiant palace — reared its head. 
In the monarch Thought's dominion — 

It stood there ! 
Never seraph spread a pinion 

Over fabric half so fair! 

Banners yellow, glorious, golden, 

On its roof did float and flow, 
(This — all this — was in the olden 

Time long ago,) 
And every gentle air that dallied, 

In that sweet day, 
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid, 

A winged odor went away. 

Wanderers in that happy valley, 

Through two luminous windows, saw 
Spirits moving musically, 

To a lute's well-tuned law, 
Round about a throne where, sitting 

(Porphyrogene !) 
In state iiis glory well befitting, 

The ruler of the realm was seen. 

And all with pearl and ruby glowing 

Was the fair palace door, 
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing 

And sparkling evermore, 



LITERARY CAREER 123 

A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty 

Was but to sing, 
In voices of surpassing beauty, 

The wit and wisdom of their king. 

But evil things, in robes of sorrow, 
Assailed the monarch's high estate. 

(Ah, let us mourn ! — for never morrow 
Shall dawn upon him desolate !) 

And round about his home the glory 
That blushed and bloomed, 

Is but a dim-remembered story 
Of the old time entombed. 

And travelers, now, within that valley, 

Through the red-litten Avindows see 
Vast forms, that move fantastically 

To a discordant melody, 
While, like a ghastly rapid river, 

Through the pale door 
A hideous throng rush out forever 

And laugh — but smile no more. 

In December, an edition of Poe's stories in two vol- 
umes was published in Philadelphia under the title 
Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. This included 
most of the stories he had written up to this time. 
These were widely and favorably noticed by the press, 
but their sale was not large. Until June, 1840, Poe 
continued to edit The Gentleman's Magazine, and then 
his engagement suddenly terminated. 

He accused Mr. Burton, the proprietor, of offering 
prizes for contributions, which he never intended to 
pay. Mr. Burton, on the other hand, asserted that 



124 EDGAR ALLAN POE 

Poe's irregular habits made it necessary for him to dis- 
pense with his services. Touching these charges, Poe 
wrote in April, 1841, to a friend: 

" . . . . In fine, I pledge yon, before God, the solemn 
word of a gentleman, that I am temperate even to rigor. From 
the hour in which I first saw this basest of calumniators " 
(Burton) " to the hour in which I retired from his office in 
uncontrollable disgust at his chicanery, arrogance, ignorance 
and brutality, nothing stronger than water ever passed my 
lips. 

" It is, however, due to candor that I inform you upon what 
foundation he has erected his slanders. At no period of my life 
was I what men call intemperate. I never was in the habit of 
intoxication. I never drunk drams, etc. But, for a brief period, 
while I resided in Richmond, and edited the Messenger, I cer- 
tainly did give way, at long intervals, to the temptations held 
out on all sides by the spirit of Southern conviviality. My sensi- 
tive temperament could not stand an excitement which was an 
every day matter to my companions. In short, it sometimes 
happened that I was completely intoxicated. For some days 
after each excess I was invariably confined to bed. But it is 
now quite four years since I have abandoned every kind of alco- 
holic drink — four years with the exception of a single deviation 
which occurred shortly after my leaving Burton, and when I was 
induced to resort to the occasional use of cider, with the hope of 
relieving a nervous attack.'" 

One great ambition of Poe's life was to publish a 
magazine of his own, and within two weeks of his break 
with Burton, he announced The Penn Magazine to 
appear January 1, 1811. Lack of money and subscrib- 
ers, however, compelled him to abandon this plan of a 
magazine of his own for some time to come. 

In the meantime, The G entlemari s Magazine had been 



Graham's magazine 125 

sold to George R. Graham, editor of a not very success- 
ful periodical, The Casket. This gentleman combined 
the two publications under the name, soon to become 
famous, of G-raham's Magazine. In February, 1841, 
Poe accepted the post of editor, and during the eighteen 
months of his connection with this magazine, he con- 
tributed many of his most famous stories and brilliant 
criticisms. Among the stories of this period may be 
mentioned The Murders of the Rue Morgue, and The 
Descent into the Maelstrom. 

Another subject to w T hich Poe devoted considerable 
time, time which we cannot but regret was not given to 
more serious literary work, was the study of cryptog- 
raphy or ciphers and secret writings. In his story of 
The G-old Bug, he had written : 

" Circumstances, and a certain bias of mind, have led me to 
take interest in such riddles, and it may well be doubted whether 
human ingenuity can construct an enigma of the kind which 
human ingenuity may not, by proper application, resolve." 

In G-raliams Magazine he publicly offered to solve 
any cryptogram sent him. As a result, he received hun- 
dreds of ciphers in English, French, German, Spanish, 
Italian, Latin and Greek, all of which he deciphered 
with the exception of one which he proved an impos- 
ture. His was a mind peculiarly adapted to solve 
such puzzles, being capable of the keenest and most 
minute analysis. His ability to reconstruct the whole 
from a part was marvelous. The first few chapters only 
of Dickens's Barnaby Budge had been published, and in 
a review of them, Poe told, with mathematical exact- 



12(3 EDGAR ALLAN POE 

ness, what should be the plot of the yet unwritten 
story. The correctness of his solution drew from 
Dickens a letter of admiring praise, in which he jok- 
ingly inquired if Poe had dealings with Satan. 

Poe's connection with Graham's Magazine was the 
brightest period of his life. From five thousand sub- 
scribers, the number had increased to fifty- two thousand, 
and this success was mainly due to his own fascinating 
stories and fearless criticisms. His fame as a writer 
was national and growing greater every day, and his 
home life was a dream of perfect domestic happi- 
ness. 

But " unmerciful disaster " still dogged his footsteps. 
During the fall of 1841, his idolized wife ruptured a 
blood vessel in singing. Her life was despaired of, and 
Poe suffered all the agonies of her death as only such 
a loving, sensitive nature could. She, however, partly 
recovered, although lier health, never robust, was 
henceforth more delicate than ever. Poe never 
fully recovered from the shock. Mr. Graham, in writ- 
ing of Poe in later years, says, 

" His love for his wife was a sort of rapturous worship of the 
spirit of beauty, which he felt was fading before his eyes. I 
have seen him hovering around her when she was ill, with all 
the fond fear and tender anxiety of a mother for her first-born 
— her slightest cough causing in him a shudder, a heart chill, 
that was visible. I rode out one summer evening with them, 
and the remembrance of his watchful eyes, eagerly bent upon 
the slightest change of hue in that loved face, haunts me yet as 
the memory of a sad strain. It was this hourly anticipation of 
her loss, that made him a sad and thoughtful man, and lent a 
mournful melody to his undying song. 1 ' 



THE GOLD BUG 127 

Poe, always of a restless disposition, became dissatis- 
fied in his position. He felt that what he had accom- 
plished for Graham's should have been more liberally 
rewarded, as indeed it should. He still dreamed of a 
magazine of his own, and also endeavored to secure a 
government appointment at Washington, but without 
success. All these reasons, with the possible irregular- 
ities of his life and his wife's health, may explain 
the severance of his connection with Graham's in the 
spring of 1842. The exact truth will probably never 
be known. 

His life from this time onward was one of almost 
uninterrupted discouragement and disappointment. 
During the year after his leaving Graham's, he again 
attempted to establish a magazine to be called The 
Stylus. In the fall, his principal source of income was 
from one of the less prominent magazines, Snowden's 
Lady's Companion., to which among other pieces, he 
contributed The Mystery of Marie Roget. 

The first letters of a correspondence with James 
Russell Lowell were also written at this time, which re- 
sulted in Poe's contributing several articles to The 
Pioneer, a magazine which Lowell was then editing. 
This publication lasted, however, only a few months. 

In June, 1843, Poe's story, The Gold Bug, now one 
of his best known and most popular tales, won a prize 
of one hundred dollars offered by The Dollar News- 
paper. Of this incident, Poe wrote to a friend : " ' The 
Gold Bug' was originally sent to Graham ; but he not 
liking it, I got him to take some critical papers instead, 
and sent it to 'The Dollar Newspaper,' which had 



128 EDGAR ALLAN POE 

offered one hundred dollars for the best story. It ob- 
tained frie premium, and made a great noise." The 
fearful tale of The Black Cat was published in August. 
A visitor to the poet's home at this time says : 

"When once lie sent for me to visit him, during a period of 
illness, caused by protracted and anxious watching at the bedside 
of his sick wife, I was impressed by the singular neatness and 
the air of refinement in his home. It was in a small house, in 
one of the pleasant and silent neighborhoods far from the center 
of the town, and, though slightly and cheaply furnished, every- 
thing in it was so tasteful and so fitly disposed that it seemed 
altogether suitable for a man of genius. For this and for most 
of the comforts he enjoyed, in his brightest as in his darkest 
years, he was chiefly indebted to his mother-in-law, who loved 
him with more than maternal devotion and constancy." 

May ne Reid speaks of Mrs. Clemm as 

" the guardian of the home, watching it against the silent but 
continuous sap of necessity, that appeared every day to be ap- 
proaching closer and nearer. She was the sole servant, keep- 
ing everything clean ; the sole messenger, doing the errands, 
making pilgrimages between the poet and his publishers, fre- 
quently bringing back such chilling responses as ' The article 
not accepted, ' or ' The check not to be given until such and such 
a day,' — often too late for his necessities. And she was also 
the messenger to the market ; from it bringing back not ' the 
delicacies of the season,' but only such commodities as were 
called for by the dire exigencies of hunger." 

During the winter, Poe seems again to have assisted 
Graham in the publication of his magazine, but not as 
acknowledged editor. The following April, 1844, he 
determined to leave Philadelphia and seek to better his 
fortunes, which indeed were desperate, in New York. 



BALLOON HOAX 129 

His first appearance in print after reaching this city 
was in the New York Sun, which published his notorious 
Balloon Hoax. Under the following startling head- 
lines was given a detailed account of an imaginary 
passage of a balloon from England to America in three 
days. 

Astounding News by Express, via Norfolk ! 

The Atlantic Crossed in Three Days ! ! 

Signal Triumph of Mr. Monck Mason's Flying Machine ! ! ! 

"Arrival at Sullivan's Island, near Charleston, S. C, of Mr. 
Mason, Mr. Robert Holland, Mr. Henson, Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, 
and four others, in the Steering Balloon, 'Victoria,' after a passage 
of seventy -five hours from Land to Land! Full Particulars of the 
Voyage ! " 

So realistic and minute was the description of this 
journey, that many persons were deceived and believed 
it an actual occurrence. 

During the same month, A Tale of the Magged Moun- 
tains was published in Grodey's Lady's Book. Writ- 
ing to Lowell a little later, he says : 

". . . . My life has been whim — impulse — passion — 
a longing for solitude — a scorn of all things present, in an 
earnest desire for the future. 

"lam profoundly excited by music, and by some poems — 
those of Tennyson especially — whom, with Keats, Shelley, 
Coleridge (occasionally), and a few others of like thought and 
expression, I regard as the sole poets. Music is the perfection 
of the soul, or idea, of poetry. The vagueness of exaltation 
aroused by a sweet air (which should be strictly indefinite and 
never too strongly suggestive) is precisely what we should aim 
at in poetry. Affectation, within bounds, is thus no blemish. 11 
And further on : "I think my best poems ' The Sleeper, 1 < The 
Conqueror Worm, 1 <■ The Haunted Palace, 1 ' Lenore, 1 ' Dream- 
land, 1 and 'The Coliseum, 1 — but all have been hurried and 



130 EDGAE ALLAN POE 

unconsidered. 11 (This letter is dated July 2, 1844:, which was 
before The Haven was written.) " My best tales are ' Ligeia,' 
the ' Gold Buji', 1 the ' Murders in the Rue Morgue , 1 ' The Fall of 
the House of Usher, 1 the ' Tell-Tale Heart, 1 the 'Black Cat, 1 
' William AVilson, 1 and ' The Descent into the Maelstrom. 1 ' The 
Purloined Letter, 1 forthcoming in the ' Gift, 1 is perhaps -the best 
of my tales of ratiocination. I have lately written for Godey 
' The Oblong Box, 1 and < Thou Art the Man, 1 — as } r et unpub- 
lished. 11 

Soon after settling in New York, lie became a sub- 
editor on The Evening Mirror, a daily paper with a 
weekly issue in addition. Here his work was very 
limited. " It was rather a step downward, after being 
the chief editor of several monthlies, as Poe had been, 
to come into the office of a daily journal as a mechani- 
cal paragraph is t." It assured, however, a steady, though 
meagre, income. In this paper, January 29, 1845, was 
first published The Raven, the best known of all Poe's 
writings. 

THE RAVEN" 

Once upon a midnight drear}^ while I ptondered, weak and. 

weary, 
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore — 
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, 
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. 
" 'Tis some visitor, 11 I muttered, "tapping at my chamber 

door — 

Only this and nothing more. 11 

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, 
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the 
floor. 



THE KAVEN 131 

Eagerly I wished the morrow ; — vainly I had sought to borrow 
From my books surcease of sorrow — sorrow for the lost 

Lenore — 
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore, 

Nameless here forevermore. 

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain 
Thrilled me — filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before ; 
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating, 
' ' 'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door — 
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door ; 

This it is and nothing more." 

Presently my soul grew stronger ; hesitating then no longer, 
" Sir," said I, " or Madame, truly your forgiveness I implore ; 
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, 
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, 
That I scarce was sure I heard you " — here I opened wide the 
door — 

Darkness there and nothing more. 

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, 

fearing, 
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream 

before ; 
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, 
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word 

" Lenore ! " 
This T whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, 

" Lenore ! " — 

Merely this and nothing more. 

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, 
Soon again I heard a tapping something louder than before. 
"Surely, 11 said I, "surely that is something at my window 
lattice ; 



132 EDGAR ALLAN POE • 

Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore — 
Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore ; — 

'Tis the wind and nothing more." 

Open here I flung- the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, 
In there stepped a stately Raven ot the saintly days of yore. 
Not the least obeisance made he, not a minute stopped or 

stayed he, 
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber 

door — 
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door — 

Perched, and sat, and nothing more. 

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, 

By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, 

" Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, " art sure 

no craven. 
Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly 

shore — 
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian 

shore ! " 

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." 

Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, 
Though its answer little meaning — little relevancy bore ; 
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being 
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door — 
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door — 

With such name as " Nevermore." 

But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only 
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. 
Notliing further then he uttered; not a feather then he flut- 
tered — 
Till I scarcely more than muttered, " Other friends have flown 

before — 
On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown 
• before." 

Then the bird said, " Nevermore." 



THE RAVEN 133 

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, 
" Doubtless," said I, " what it utters is its only stock and store, 
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster 
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden 

bore — 
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore 

Of ' Never — nevermore. 1 " 

But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling, 
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and 

door ; 
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking 
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore — 
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of 

yore 

Meant in croaking " Nevermore. 11 

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing 
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core ; 
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining 
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er, 
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er 

She shall press, ah, nevermore! 

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an un- 
seen censer 

Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor. 

" Wretch, 11 I cried, " thy God hath lent thee — by these angels 
he hath sent thee 

Respite — respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore ! 

Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore ! " 

Quoth the Raven, " Nevermore. 11 

'^Prophet! 11 said I, "thing of evil! — prophet still, if bird or 

devil ! — 
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here 

ashore, 



134 EDGAR ALLAN POE 

Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted — 
On this home by Horror haunted — tell me truly, I implore — 
Is there — is there balm inGilead? — tell me — tell me, I im- 
plore ! " 

Quoth the Raven, " Nevermore." 

"Prophet ! " said I, " thing of evil! — prophet still, if bird or 

devil ! — 
By that Heaven that bends above us — by that God we bolh 

adore — 
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, 
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore — 
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore." 

Quoth the Raven, " Nevermore." 

" Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend! " I shrieked, 

upstarting — 
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore ! 
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath 

spoken ! 
Leave my loneliness unbroken ! — quit the bust above my door ! 
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off 

my door ! " 

Quoth the Raven, " Nevermore." 

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting 
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; 
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, 
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the 

floor; 
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor 

Shall be lifted — nevermore ! 

The success of this poem was instantaneous. It 
fascinated every reader by its vague terror and the 
music of its rhythm. It is truly a work of art and 
genius. For this masterpiece, Poe received ten dollars. 



PROPRIETOR OF "THE BROADWAY JOURNAL" 135 

In March, he became associate-editor of The Broad- 
way Journal, a weekly which had been started the 
previous January, and to which he had contributed. 
He was now to receive one third of the profits. He 
wrote some original matter for it, but reprinted a great 
many of his earlier stories with slight revision or change 
of titles. During the summer, there was a disagree- 
ment among the three interested parties, and Poe be- 
came sole editor but still with one third interest. On 
October 21, he became sole proprietor of The Broad- 
ivay Journal, and one dream of his life was realized, 
only to be shortly afterwards shattered. The Journal 
showed vigorous management; its advertisements had 
been largely increased and its circulation doubled. Poe 
had not, however, sufficient capital to successfully carry 
on the publication. After a brave, but bitter struggle, 
he was obliged to give up the magazine, December, 
1845. 

An amusing incident is told by Horace Greeley, who 
indorsed a promissory note of Poe's for fifty dollars, 
to help him carry on the Journal. This note Greeley 
himself had to pay. In referring to it in later years, 
he says : 

" A gushing youth once wrote me to this effect : 

' Dear Sir, — Among your literary treasures, you have doubt- 
less preserved several autographs of our country's late lamented 
poet, Edgar A. Poe. If so, and you can spare one, please en- 
close it to me, and receive the thanks of yours truly. 1 

" I promptly responded as follows : — 

'Dear Sir : — Among my literary treasures, there happens to 
be exactly one autograph of our country's late lamented poet, 



DEATH OF HIS WIFE 137 

Edgar A. Poe. It is his note of hand for fifty dollars, with my 
indorsement across the back. It cost me exactly fifty dollars and 
seventy-five cents (including- protest), and you may have it for 
half that amount. Yours respectfully.' 

" That autograph, I regret to say, remains on my hands, and 
is still for sale at first cost, despite the lapse of time and the 
depreciation of our currency.'" 

From this time onward, the unfortunate condition of 
the little family grew worse and worse. Poe's own 
health began to fail and his wife was slowly but surely 
dying. He was in no condition, either of mind or 
body, to accomplish any work that would count. In 
the spring, they moved to a little cottage in Fordham, 
above what is now the upper part of New York city. 
The surrounding country was very beautiful, but the 
cottage, standing on King's Bridge Road at the top of 
Fordham Hill, was very small and plain. Here, during 
the summer and following winter they struggled on, 
often without the necessities of life. 

On January 30, 1847, his idolized wife, Virginia, 
died. Poe's love for his young and lovely girl-wife 
was the most beautiful thing in his life. It was a kind 
of adoration. When she died, the last hope, the one 
object that made life worth living for him, passed 
away. His beautiful poem, Annabel Lee, gives some 
slight idea of the depth of his love. 

ANNABEL LEE 

It was many and many a year ago, 

In a kingdom by the sea, 
That a maiden there lived whom you may know 

By the name of Annabel Lee ; 



138 EDGAR ALLAN POE 

And this maiden she lived with no other thought 
Than to love and be loved by me. 

/was a child and she was a child, 

In this kingdom by the sea : 
But we loved with a love that was more than love — 

I and my Annabel Lee ; 
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven 

Coveted her and me. 

And this was the reason that, long ago, 

In this kingdom by the sea, 
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling 

My beautiful Annabel Lee ; 
So that her high-born kinsmen came 

And bore her away from me, 
To shut her up in a sepulcher 

In this kingdom by the sea. 

The angels, not half so happy in heaven, 

Went envying her and me — 
Yes ! — that was the reason (as all men know, 

In this kingdom by the sea) 
That the wind came out of the cloud by night, 

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. 

But our love it was stronger by far than the love 

Of those who were older than we — 

Of many far wiser than we — 
And neither the angels in heaven above, 

Nor the demons down under the sea, 
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul 

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee : 

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams 

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee ; 
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes 

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee ; 



DEATH OF HIS WIFE 139 

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side 

Of my darling — my darling — my life and my bride, 

In the sepulcher there by the sea, 

In her tomb by the sounding sea. 

The passage, 

" So that her high-born kinsmen came 
And bore her away from me, 
To shut her up in a sepulcher 
In this kingdom by the sea," 

is a very beautiful expression of his feeling that his 
child-wife was kin to the angels who bore her away 
from him. 

After this sad event, Poe was dangerously ill, so ill, 
indeed, that his life was despaired of. He recovered, 
however, but was never the same man afterwards. He 
yielded more and more to the habit of drink. On one 
of his sensitive temperament, one glass of wine had the 
same effect as several glasses on an ordinary man. In 
a letter to a friend written a year after his wife's death, 
he writes : 

" You say, « Can you hint to me what was the " terrible evil " 
which caused the "irregularities 1 ' so profoundly lamented?' 1 
Yes, I can do more than hint. This « evil ' was the greatest 
which can befall a man. Six years ago, a wife, whom I loved 
as no man ever loved before, ruptured a blood-vessel in singing. 
Her life was despaired of. I took leave of her forever, and 
underwent all the agonies of her death. She recovered partially, 
and I again hoped. At the end of a year, the vessel broke again. 
I went through precisely the same scene. . . . Then again — 
again — and even once again, at varying intervals. Each time 
I felt all the agonies of her death — and at each accession of the 
disorder I loved her more dearly and clung to her life with more 



140 EDGAK ALLAN POE 

desperate pertinacity. But I am constitutionally sensitive — • 
nervous in a very unusual degree. I became insane, with long 
intervals of horrible sanity. During these fits of absolute un- 
consciousness, I drank — God only knows how often or how 
much. As a matter of course, my enemies referred the insanity 
to the drink, rather than the drink to the insanity. I had, indeed, 
nearly abandoned all hojje of a permanent cure, when I found 
one in the death of my wife. This I can and do endure as be- 
comes a man. It was the horrible never-ending oscillation 
between hope and despair which I could not longer have endured, 
without total loss of reason. In the death of what was my life, 
then, I receive a new, but — Oh God! — how melancholy an 
existence.'" 

During the three years following his wife's death, he 
lived almost as one in a dream. Mrs. Clemm was de- 
voted to him to the last. His poem To My Mother, is 
a touching expression of his love for her and his appre- 
ciation of her love and devotion for him. 



TO MY MOTHER 

Because I feel that, in the Heavens above, 

The angels, whispering to one another, 
Can find, among their burning terms of love, 

None so devotional as that of " Mother," 
Therefore by that clear name I long have called you — 

You who are more than mother unto me, 
And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you, 

In setting my Virginia's spirit free. 
My mother — my own mother, who died early, 

Was but the mother of myself ; but you 
Are mother to the one I loved so dearly, 

And thus are dearer, than the mother I knew 
By that infinity with which my wife 

Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life. 



THE BELLS 141 

Poe wrote more or less for the magazines, but nothing 
of great importance. His best work had been clone. 
He also lectured several times on poetry with some 
success, for he had a good presence, a strong and sweet 
voice, and recited the poems that he used as illustra- 
tions in an impressive and most effective manner. 

An interesting story is connected with the writing of 
The Bells, which was composed during this period. It 
was early in the summer that he called one day on a 
friend, Mrs. Shew, and complained that he had to write 
a poem, but felt no inspiration. She persuaded him to 
drink some tea in a conservatory whose open windows 
admitted the sound of church bells, and gave him some 
paper, which he declined, saying, " I so dislike the noise 
of bells to-night, I cannot write. I have no subject — 
I am exhausted." Mrs. Shew then wrote, "The Bells, 
by E. A. Poe," and added, " The Bells, the little silver 
bells." On the poet's finishing the stanza thus sug- 
gested, she again wrote, " The heavy iron bells," and 
this idea also Poe elaborated, and then copying off the 
two stanzas, headed it, " By Mrs. M. L. Shew," and called 
it her poem. This original draft of the poem was after- 
wards much lengthened and revised. 

THE BELLS 



Hea.r the sledges with the bells — 
Silver bells ! 
What a world of merriment their melody foretells ! 
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, 
In the icy air of night ! 



142 EDGAR ALLAN POE 

While the stars that oversprinkle 
All. the heavens, seem to twinkle 
With a crystalline delight ; 
Keeping time, time, time, 
In a sort of Runic rhyme, 
To the tintinnabnlation that so musically wells 
From the bells, bells, bells, bells, 
Bells, bells, bells — 
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells. 

ii. 
Hear the mellow wedding bells, 
Golden bells ! 
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells ! 
Through the balmy air of night 
How they ring out their delight ! 
From the molten-golden notes, 
And all in tune, 
What a liquid ditty floats 
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats 
On the moon ! 
Oh, from out the sounding cells, 
What a gusli of euphony voluminously wells ! 
How it swells ! 
How it dwells 
On the Future ! how it tells 
Of the rapture that impels 
To the swinging and the ringing 

Of the bells, bells, bells, 
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, 
Bells, bells, bells — 
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells ! 

in. 
Hear the loud alarum bells — 
, Brazen bells ! 
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells ! 



THE BELLS 143 

In the startled ear of night 
How they scream out their affright I 
Too much horrified to speak, 
They can only shriek, shriek, 
Out of tune, 
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, 
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire, 
Leaping higher, higher, higher, 
With a desperate desire, 
And a resolute endeavor 
Now — now to sit or never, 
By the side of the pale-faced mcon. 
Oh, the bells, bells, bells ! 
What a tale their terror tells 
Of Despair ! 
How they clang, and clash, and roar! 
What a horror they outpour 
On the bosom of the palpitating air ! 

Yet the ear it fully knows, 
By the twanging, 
And the clanging, 
How the danger ebbs and flows ; 
Yet the ear distinctly tells, 
In the jangling, 
And the wrangling, 
How the danger sinks and swells, 
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells — 
Of the bells — 
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, 
Bells, bells, bells — 
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells ! 

IV. 

Hear the tolling of the bells — 
Iron bells ! 
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels ! 



144 EDGAR ALLAN POE 

In the silence of the night, 
How we shiver with affright 
At the melancholy menace of their tone ! 
For every sound that floats 
From the rust within their throats 

Is a groan. 
And the people — ah, the people — 
They that dwell up in the steeple, 

All alone. 
And who tolling, tolling, tolling, 

In that muffled monotone, 
Feel a glory in so rolling 

On the human heart a stone — 
They are neither man nor woman — 
They are neither brute nor human — 
They are Ghouls : 
And their king it is who tolls ; 
And he rolls, rolls, rolls, 
Rolls 
A pa3an from the bells ! 
And his merry bosom swells 

With the paean of the bells ! 
And he dances, and he yells ; 
Keeping time, time, time, 
In a sort of Runic rhyme, 
To the pasan of the bells — 
Of the bells : 
Keeping time, time, time, 
In a sort of Runic rhyme, 

To the throbbing of the bells - 
Of the bells, bells, bells — 

To the sobbing of the bells ; 
Keeping time, time, time, 

As he knells, knells, knells, 
In a happy Runic rhyme, 

To the rolling of the bells — 
Of the bells, bells, bells — 



DEATH 145 

To the tolling of the bells, 
Of the bells, bells, Dells, bells — 
Bells, bells, bells — 
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells. 

In 1848, he became engaged to be married, but this 
engagement was broken off. In 1849, he again be- 
came engaged, and the wedding was to have taken 
place in October. His prospects were brightening and 
he had gone South to deliver a lecture. On his way 
back to New York, whence he proposed to take Mrs. 
Clemm to Richmond, where he meant to live after his 
marriage, he stopped in Baltimore to visit friends. 

The true facts of the last few days will probably 
never be known. The most generally accepted belief 
is that he was captured and drugged by politicians, who 
kept him in a stupefied condition, and made him vote 
at several places during election day. In the afternoon 
of that day, he was found in one of the voting places 
almost unconscious. One of his friends was notified 
and he was taken to the hospital, where he lingered 
a few days, passing away on Sunday, October 7, 1849. 

The skies they were ashen and sober ; 

The leaves they were crisped and sere — 
The leaves they were withering and sere ; 

It was night in the lonesome October 
Of my most immemorial year. 

Eulalume. 

George E. Woodbury thus speaks of the poet : 

' ' On the roll of our literature Poe's name is inscribed with 
the few foremost, and in the world at large his genius is estab- 
lished as valid among all men. An artist primarily, whose 



146 EDGAR ALLAN POE 

skill, helped by the finest sensitive and perceptive powers in 
himself, was developed by thought, patience, and endless self- 
correction into a subtle deftness of hand unsurpassed in its own 
work, he belonged to the men of culture instead of those of origi- 
nally perfect power. Now and then gleams of light and stretches 
of lovely landscape shine out, but for the most part his mastery 
was over dismal, superstitious, and waste places. In imagina- 
tion, as in action, his was an evil genius; and in its realms of 
revery he dwelt alone. Except the wife who idolized him, and 
the mother who cared for him, no one touched his heart in the 
years of his manhood, and at no time was love so strong in him 
as to rule his life." 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 



1807-1882 



He the sweetest of all singers. 
Beautiful and childlike was he, 
Brave as man is, soft as woman, 
Pliant as a wand of willow, 
Stately as a deer with antlers. 

All the many sounds of nature 
Borrowed sweetness from his singing ; 
All the hearts of men were softened 
By the pathos of his music ; 
For he sang of peace and freedom, 
Sang of beauty, love, and longing ; 
Sang of death, and life undying 
In the land of the Hereafter. 
For his gentleness they loved him 
And the magic of his singing. 

The Song of Hiawatha. 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 



Come, read to me some poem, 

Some simple and heartfelt lay, 
That shall soothe this restless feeling-, 

And banish the thoughts of day. 

Not from the grand old masters, 

Not from the bards sublime, 
Whose distant footsteps echo 

Through the corridors of time. 

Read from some humbler poet, 
Whose songs gush from his heart, 

As showers from the clouds of summer, 
Or tears from the eyelids start. 

The Day Is Done. 

Henky Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Port- 
land, Maine, February 27, 1807, in "a great, square house 
by the sea." From his father's side, he was a descend- 
ant of a New England family whose founder, William 
Longfellow, came from England in the latter part of 
the seventeenth century, and settled at Newbury, Massa- 
chusetts. His mother, Zilpah Wadsworth, was a 
daughter of General Wadsworth of Revolutionary fame, 
whose ancestors dated back to the landing of the May- 
flower. From both sides, therefore, Longfellow was 

151 



152 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

a descendant from New England families whose his- 
tories show that they were sturdy, upright, refined and 
intelligent, and that they lost no opportunity to show 
their patriotism. His father, Stephen Longfellow, was 
a well-educated man of genial disposition and attractive 
social manners. He was a graduate of Harvard Col- 
lege, establishing there a good record as a scholar. 
After leaving college, he studied law and eventually 
became a very successful lawyer. He was a trustee of 
Bowdoin College from 1817 to 1836. He received 
from Bowdoin the degree of Doctor of Laws. From his 
mother, Longfellow must have inherited the imagina- 
tive and poetic side of his character, for she was a great 
lover of nature and was fond of poetry and music. 

The " great, square house by the sea," where Henry 
Wadsworth Longfellow was born, belonged to his uncle, 
Captain Samuel Stephenson, the husband of Abigail 
Longfellow. As Mr. Stephenson was away from home 
on account of business, the Longfellows spent the win- 
ter of 1806-7 with Mrs. Stephenson. The house is a 
wooden building, on Front and Hancock Streets, front- 
ing the beach, and at that time, commanding a view of 
Casco Bay with its many islands, which were the Hes- 
perides of Longfellow's boyish dreams. In the early 
spring of 1808, when Henry was little more than a 
year old, the Longfellows moved into the Wadsworth 
house, now called the Longfellow mansion, on Congress 
street. It was built by General Wadsworth, Long- 
fellow's grandfather, during the years 1784-6. It was 
an unusual -looking house for that period, differing 
from the rest of the houses in the town in its architec- 



, 1 




154 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

ture, and in being made entirely of brick. " The 
Wadsworth house when originally finished had a high 
pitched roof of two equal sides, and four chimneys. 
The store adjoined the house at the southeast, with an 
entrance door from the house, and was of two stories. 
Here the General sold all kinds of goods needed in the 
town and country trade." When General Wads worth 
left Portland, and the' Longfellows moved into the 
Wads worth house, the store was removed and a brick 
vestibule built in its stead. A third story was after- 
ward added to the house, and as thus altered, it now 
stands. 

Longfellow was named after his uncle, Henry Wads- 
worth, who was a lieutenant in the American navy. 
He died in his country's service when a young man of 
nineteen. Preferring death to slavery, he perished in 
the fire-ship Intrepid, which was blown up before Trip- 
oli, to save it from falling into the enemy's hands, 
September, 1804. 

In My Lost Youth Longfellow describes the town of 
Portland as it was in the days of his childhood. 

MY LOST YOUTH 

Often I think of the beautiful town 

That is seated by the sea ; 
Often in thought go up and down 
The pleasant streets of that dear old town, 
And my youth conies back to me. 
And a verse of a Lapland song 
Is haunting my memory still : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 



MY LOST YOUTH 155 

I can see the shadowy lines of its trees, 

And catch, in sudden gleams, 
The sheen of the far- surrounding seas, 
And islands that were the Ilesperides 
Of all my boyish dreams. 

And the burden of that old song, 
It murmurs and whispers still : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. 11 

I remember the black wharves and the slips, 

And the sea tides tossing free ; 
And the Spanish sailors with bearded lips, 
And the beauty and mystery of the ships, 
And the magic of the sea. 

And the voice of that wayward song- 
Is singing and saying still : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. 11 

I remember the bulwarks by the shore, 

And the fort upon the hill ; 
The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar, 
The drumbeat repeated o'er and o'er, 
And the bugle wild and shrill. 

And the music of that old song 
Throbs in ray memory still : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 

I remember the sea-fight far away, 

How it thundered o'er the tide ! 
And the dead captains, as they lay 
In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay, 
Where they in battle died. 

And the sound of that mournful song 
Goes through me with a thrill : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 



156 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

I can see the breezy dome of groves, 

The shadows of Deering's Woods ; 
And the friendships old and the early loves 
Come back with a sabbath sound, as of doves, 
In quiet neighborhoods. 

And the verse of that sweet old song, 
It nutters and murmurs still : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. 11 

I remember the gleams and glooms that dart 

Across the schoolboy's brain ; 
The song and the silence in the heart, 
That in part are prophecies, and in part 
Are longings wild and vain. 

And the voice of that fitful song 
Sings on, and is never still : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. 11 

There are things of which I may not speak; 

There are dreams that cannot die ; 
There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak, 
And bring a pallor into the cheek, 
And a mist before the eye. 

And the words of that fatal song 
Come over me like a chill : 
" A boy's will is the wind 1 s will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. 11 

Strange to me now are the forms I meet 

When I visit the dear old town ; 
But the native air is pure and sweet, 
And the trees that o'ershadow each well-known street, 
As they balance up and down, 

Are singing the beautiful song, 
Are sighing and whispering still : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. 11 



158 HENIIY WADSWOKTH LONGFELLOW 

And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair, 

And with joy that is almost pain 
My heart goes back to wander there, 
And among the dreams of the days that were, 
I find my lost youth again. 

And the strange and beautiful song, 
The groves are repeating it still : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 

The Spanish sailors, the bulwarks, the fort, the sun 
rise gun and the dead captains, all refer to the war 
of 1812, the incidents of which seem to have made a 
lasting impression on the boy's mind. The pottery and 
the rope walks also keenly interested him, as the fol- 
lowing poems show : 

Turn, turn, my wheel! Turn round and. round 
Without a pause, without a sound : 

So spins the flying world away ! 
This clay, well mixed with marl and sand, 
Follows the motion of my hand ; 
For some must follow, and some command, 

Though all are made of clay ! 

Thus sang the Potter at his task 

Beneath the blossoming haw thorn -tree, 

While o'er his features, like a mask, 

The quilted sunshine and leaf -shade 

Moved, as the boughs above him swayed, 

And clothed him, till he seemed to be 

A figure woven in tapestry, 

So sumptuously was he arrayed 

In that magnificent attire 

Of sable tissue flaked with fire. 

Like a magician he appeared, 



KEKAMOS 159 

A conjurer without book or beard ; 
And while he plied his magic art — 
For it was magical to me — 
I stood in silence and apart, 
And wondered more and more to see 
That shapeless, lifeless mass of clay 
Rise up to meet the master's hand, 
And now contract and now expand, 
And even his slightest touch obey ;. 
While ever in a thoughtful mood 
He sang his ditty, and at times 
Whistled a tune between the rhymes, 
As a melodious interlude. 

Turn, turn, my wheel! All things must change 
To something new, to something strange ; 

Nothing that is can pause or stay ; 
The moon will wax, the moon will wane, 
The mist and cloud will turn to rain, 
The rain to mist and cloud again, 

To-morrow be to-day. 



What land is this ? Yon pretty town 
Is Delft, with all its wares displayed ; 
The pride, the market-place, the crown 
And center of the Potter's trade. 
See ! every house and room is bright 
With glimmers of reflected light 
From plates that on the dresser shine ; 
Flagons to foam with Flemish beer, 
Or sparkle with the Rhenish wine, 
And pilgrim flasks' with fleurs-de-lis, 
And ships upon a rolling sea, 
And tankards pewter topped, and queer 
With comic mask and musketeer ! 

Keramos. 



160 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW 



THE ROPEWALK 

In that building, long and low, 
With its windows all a-rovv, 

Like the portholes of a hulk, 
Human spiders spin and spin, 
Backward down their threads so thin 

Dropping, each a hempen bulk. 

At the end, an open door ; 
Squares of sunshine on the floor 

Light the long and dusky lane ; 
And the whirring of a wheel, 
Dull and drowsy, makes me feel 

All its spokes are in my brain. 

As the spinners to the end 
Downward go and reascend, 

Gleam the long threads in the sun ; 
While within this brain of mine 
Cobwebs brighter and more fine 

By the busy wheel are spun. 

Two fair maidens in a swing, 
Like white doves upon the wing, 

First before my vision pass ; 
Laughing, as their gentle hands 
Closely clasp the twisted strands, 

At their shadow on the grass. 

Then a booth of mountebanks, 
With its smell of tan and planks, 

And a girl poised high in air 
On a cord, in spangled dress, 
With a faded loveliness, 

And a weary look of care. 



THE ROPE WALK 161 

Then a homestead among- farms, 
And a woman with bare arms 

Drawing water from a well ; 
As the bucket mounts apace, 
With it mounts her own fair face, 

As at some magician's spell. 

Then an old man in a tower, 
Ringing loud the noontide hour, 

While the rope coils round and round 
Like a serpent at his feet, 
And again, in swift retreat, 

Nearly lifts him from the ground. 

Then within a prison-yard, 
Faces fixed, and stern, and hard, 

Laughter and indecent mirth ; 
Ah ! it is the gallows tree ! 
Breath of Christian charity, 

Blow, and sw r eep it from the earth ! 

Then a schoolboy, with his kite 
Gleaming in a sky of light, 

And an eager, upward look ; 
Steeds pursued through lane and field ; 
Fowlers with their snares concealed ; 

And an angler by a brook. 

Ships rejoicing in the breeze, 
Wrecks that float o'er unknown seas, 

Anchors dragged through faithless sand ; 
Sea fog drifting overhead, 
And, with lessening line and lead, 

Sailors feeling for the land. 

All these scenes do I behold, 
These, and many left untold, 



162 HENKY WADSWOB-TH LONGFELLOW 

In that building long and low ; 
While the wheel goes round and round, 
AVith a drowsy, dreamy sound, 

And the spinners backward go. 

Longfellow had every opportunity to become well 
educated. In his home there was an excellent library 
to which he had access from his earliest childhood. 
Beside this home library, there were the Portland 
Library and a Mr. Johnson's bookstore, places which he 
frequently visited. He made good use of his oppor- 
tunities, for he was always a studious child. Of this 
early reading, in his remarks upon Washington Irving, 
he says, 

" Every reader has his first book; I mean to say, one book 
among all others which in early youth first fascinates his ima- 
gination, and at once excites and satisfies the desires of his 
mind. To me, this first book was the Sketch Book of Washing- 
ton Irving. I was a schoolboy when it was published, and read 

each succeeding number with ever increasing wonder and de- 
cs o 

light, spellbound by its pleasant humor, its melancholy tender- 
ness, its atmosphere of revery, — nay, even by its gray-bound 
covers, the shaded letters of its titles, and the fair, clear type, 
which seemed an outward symbol of its style. How many 
delightful books the same author has given us. . . . Yet still 
the charm of the Sketch Book remains unbroken ; the old fascina- 
tion remains about it ; and whenever I open its pages, I open 
also that mysterious door which leads back into the haunted 
chambers of youth.'" 

Of his childish impressions, he wrote in later years : 

" Out of my childhood rises in my memory the recollection of 
many things rather as poetic impressions than as prosaic facts. 
Such are the damp mornings of early spring, with the loud 



164 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW 

crowing of cocks and cooing of pigeons on roofs of barns. Very 

distinct in connection with these are the indefinite lono;ino;s Inci- 
te O 

dent to childhood ; feelings of wonder and loneliness which I 
could not interpret and scarcely took cognizance of. But they 
have remained in my mind. 1 ' 

When about three years old, Longfellow went to a 
Mrs. Fellow's school. " My recollection of my first 
teacher," said the poet, many years after, " are not 
vivid : but I recall that she was bent on giving me a 
right start in life ; that she thought that even very 
young children should be made to know the difference 
between right and wrong ; and that severity of manner 
was more practical than gentleness of persuasion. She 
inspired me with one trait, — that is, a genuine respect 
for my elders." Longfellow remained at this school 
only a short time. He then went to the town school, 
which he attended only two weeks. After leaving the 
town school, he went to a private school in charge of 
Nathaniel H. Carter. When Mr. Carter became a 
teacher in the Portland Academy, many of his pupils 
went with him, and among them was Longfellow. 
Here he was prepared for college. In later years, he 
relates the following incident about one of his teachers : 
" I remember the schoolmaster at the Academy, and 
the mingled odor that hovered about him of tobacco, 
India rubber and lead pencil. A nervous, excitable 
man. When we left school, I went with a schoolmate to 
take leave of him and thank him for his patience with 
us. He thought we were in jest ; and gave me a stern 
lecture on good behavior and the trials of a teacher's 
life." 



THE BATTLE OF LOVELL'S POND 165 

During his vacations from school, Longfellow occa- 
sionally would visit his grandfather Wadsworth's home 
at Hiram. Not far from Hiram was a small lake called 
Lovewell's or Lovell's Pond. This spot was made 
famous by an event in New England history called 
" Lovewell's Fight " with the Indians. The scene and 
incident must have made a deep impression upon his 
boyish mind, for it was the subject of his first poem, 
written when he was thirteen years old. It was printed 
in The Portland Gazette in November, 1820. 

THE BATTLE OF LOVELL'S POND 

Cold, cold is the north wind and rude is the blast 

That sweeps like a hurricane loudly and fast, 

As it moans through the tall waving pines lone and drear, 

Sighs a requiem sad o'er the warrior's bier. 

The war whoop is stilled, and the savage's yell 

Has sunk into silence along the wild dell ; 

The din of the battle, the tumult, is o'er 

And the war-clarion's voice is now heard no more. 

The warriors that fought for their country and bled, 
Have sunk to their rest ; the damjo earth is their bed ; 
No stone tells the jzdace where their ashes repose, 
Nor points out the spot from the graves of their foes. 

They died in their glory, surrounded by fame, 
And Victory's loud trump their death did proclaim ; 
They are dead ; but they live in each patriot's breast, 
And their names are engraven on honor's bright crest. 

Henry. 

With many misgivings, the boy dropped his manu- 
script into the letter box of The Portland Gfazette. 



166 HENKY WADSWOJRTH LOKGFELLOW 

The evening before the issue of the paper, which was a 
semi-weekly, he went again to the office and stood 
shivering in the November air, looking in, but not 
having the courage to enter. The next morning, most 
eagerly he and his sister, the only sharer of his secret, 
waited for the paper. Impatiently they watched the j 
damp sheet as it was unfolded, dried, and read by their 
father. When at last they had it in their hands, the 
youthful poet saw his verses in print, and read and re- 
read them with increasing satisfaction. In the evening, 
he visited the home of Judge Mellen, his father's friend. 
The conversation turned upon poetry, and the Judge J 
remarked: "Did you see the piece in to-day's paper? 
Very stiff, remarkably stiff ; moreover, it is all borrowed, 
every word of it." This was his first, though not his 
last, encounter with the critic. 

Longfellow entered Bowdoin College in September, 
1821. His sunny and genial disposition won the love 
and esteem of his classmates and his professors. Ac- 
cording to the opinion of many of his associates, he was 
quiet, retiring, well-bred, and was a model to all in char- 
acter and manners. His rank in class was high, though 
he had to compete with those who, afterward, became 
as brilliant and prominent as he in their various profes- 
sions. Among this group of men was Nathaniel Haw- 
thorne, who became a very close friend of his in later 
years. Both of them while in college were noted for] 
their excellence of composition. Longfellow gave an 
earnest and sincere attention to all departments oflj 
study, but his compositions, translations, and contribu-ij 
tions to the press, early indicated his literary ability. 



EARLY POEMS 167 

Longfellow was graduated from Bowdoin College in 
1825. He had the first claim to class poet, but as his 
rank in class was so high, it was deemed best to give 
him an oration as the highest mark of honor. Chatter- 
ton, the boy poet of England, had made so deep an 
impression upon his mind that he chose his life and 
writings as his subject, but at his father's suggestion 
changed his plans and took in its stead Native Writers. 

During his four years in college, Longfellow wrote 
several prose sketches and quite a number of poems, 
seventeen of which were published in The United 
States Literary Gazette. Some of these are his most 
attractive poems. Of them he says, 

"These poems were written, for the most part, during my 
college life, and all of them before the age of nineteen. Some 
have found their way into schools, and seem to be successful : 
others lead a vagabond and precarious existence in the corners 
of newspapers, or have changed their names, and run away to 
seek their fortunes beyond the sea. I say, with the Bishop of 
Avranches on a similar occasion, ' I cannot be displeased to see 
these children of mine, which I have neglected, and almost ex- 
posed, brought from their wanderings in lanes and alleys, and 
safely lodged, in order to go forth into the world together in a 
more decorous garb. ,,, 

In the authorized editions of his works, only a few 
of the early poems have been retained. These ■ are 
found under the heading of Earlier Poems. The two 
following poems, The Indian Hunter and The Sea-Diver, 
are among those that have been retained. They are 
considered the best of the earlier poems, and give some 
indication of the nature and quality of his later verse. 



168 HENRY AY ADS WORTH LONGFELLOW 



THE INDIAN HUNTER 

When the summer harvest was gathered in, 

And the sheaf of the gleaner grew white and thin, 

And the plowshare was in its furrow left, 

Where the stubble land had been lately cleft, 

An Indian hunter, with unstrung bow, 

Looked down where the valley lay stretched below. 

He was a stranger there, and all that clay 
Had been out on the hills, a perilous way : 
But the foot of the deer was far and fleet, 
And the wolf kept aloof from the hunter's feet ; 
And bitter feelings passed o'er him then, 
As he stood by the populous haunts of men. 

The winds of autumn came over the woods, 
As the sun stole out from their solitudes ; 
The moss was white on the maple's trunk, 
And dead from its arms the pale vine shrunk ; 
And ripened the mellow fruit hung, and red 
Where the tree's withered leaves around it shed. 

The foot of the reaper moved slow on the lawn, 
And the sickle cut down the yellow corn ; 
The mower sung loud by the meadow-side, 
Where the mists of evening were spreading wide ; 
And the voice of the herdsman came up the lea, 
And the dance went round by the greenwood tree. 

Then the hunter turned away from that scene, 
AVhere the home of his fathers once had been, 
And heard, by the distant and measured stroke, 
That the woodman hewed down the giant oak ; 
And burning thoughts flashed over his mind 
Of the white man's faith, and love unkind. 



THE SEA DIVER 169 

The moon of the harvest grew high and bright, 
As her golden horn pierced the cloud of white : 
A footstep was heard in the rustling brake, 
Where the beach overshadowed the misty lake, 
And a mourning voice, and a plunge from shore, 
And the hunter was seen on the hills no more. 

When years had passed on, by that still lakeside, 

The fisher looked through the silver tide : 

And there, on the smooth yellow sand displayed, 

A skeleton wasted and white was laid ; 

And 'twas seen, as the waters moved deep and slow, 

That the hand was still grasping a hunter's bow. 

THE SEA-DIVER 

My way is on the bright blue sea, 

My sleep upon its rocking tide ; 
And many an eye has followed me 

Where billows clasp the worn seaside. 

My plumage bears the crimson blush, 

When ocean by the sea is kissed, 
When fades the evening's purple flush, 

My dark wing cleaves the silver mist. 

Full many a fathom down beneath 
The bright arch of the splendid deep, 

My ear lias heard the sea-shell breathe 
O'er living myriads in their sleep. 

They rested by the coral throne, 

And by the pearly diadem ; 
Where the pale sea-grape had o'ergrown 

The glorious dwellings made by them. 

At night, upon my storm-drenched wing, 

I poised above a helmless bark ; 
And soon I saw the shattered thing 

Had passed away, and left no mark. 



170 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

And, when the wind and storm were done, 

A ship, that had rode out the gale, 
Sunk down — without a signal-gun ; 

And none was left to tell the tale. 

I saw the pomp of day depart, 

The cloud resign its golden crown, 

When to the ocean's beating heart 
The sailor's wasted corse went down. 

Peace be to those whose graves are made 

Beneath the bright and silver sea ! 
Peace — that their relics there were laid 

With no vain pride and pageantry. 

That the nature of his future profession was a matter 
which caused him some anxious thought while he was 
still in college, is shown by the following extracts from 
letters to his father during his last years there : 

" I feel very glad that I am not to be a physician, — that there 
are quite enough in the world without me. And now, as some- 
how or other this subject has been introduced, I am curious to 
know what you do intend to make of me, — whether I am to study 
a profession or not; and if so, what profession. I hope your 
ideas upon this subject will agree with mine, for I have a par- 
ticular and strong prejudice for one course of life, to which you, 
I fear, will not agree. It will not be worth while for me to 
mention what this is, until I become more acquainted with your 
own wishes. 1 ' 

" I take this early opportunity to write to you, because I wish 
to know fully your inclination in regard to the profession I am 
to pursue when I leave college. 

" For my part, I have already hinted to you what would best 
please me. I want to spend one year at Cambridge for the pur- 
pose of reading history, and of becoming familiar with the best 



LITERARY AMBITION 171 

authors in polite literature ; whilst at the same time I. can be 
acquiring a knowledge of the Italian language, without an ac- 
quaintance with which I shall be shut out from one of the most 
beautiful departments of letters. The French I mean to under- 
stand pretty thoroughly before I leave college. After leaving 
Cambridge, I would attach myself to some literary periodical 
publication, by which I could maintain myself and still enjoy 
the advantages of reading. Now, I do not think that there is 
anything visionary or chimerical in my plan thus far. The fact 
is — and I will not disguise it in the least, for I think I ought 
not — the fact is, I most eagerly aspire after future eminence in 
literature ; my whole soul burns most ardently for it, and every 
earthly thought centers in it. There may be something visionary 
in this, but I natter myself that I have prudence enough to keep 
my enthusiasm from defeating its own object by too great haste. 
Surely, there never was a better opportunity offered for the 
exertion of literary talent in our own country than is now offered. 
To be sure, most of our literary men thus far have not been pro- 
fessedly so, until they have studied and entered the practice of 
Theology, Law or Medicine. But this is evidently lost time. 
I do believe that we ought to pay more attention to the opinion 
of philosophers, that ' nothing but Nature can qualify a man for 
knowledge. 1 

4 ' Whether Nature has given me any capacity for knowledge 
or not, she has at any rate given me a very strong predilection 
for literary pursuits, and I am almost confident in believing, 
that, if I can ever rise in the world, it must be by the exercise 
of my talent in the wide field of literature. With such a belief, 
I must say that I am unwilling to engage in the study of law. 

4t Here, then, seems to be the starting point; and I think it 
best for me to float out into the world upon that tide and in that 
channel which will the soonest bring me to my destined port, 
and not to struggle against both wind and tide, and by attempt- 
ing what is impossible lose everything.'" 

' ' From the general tenor of your last letter it seems to be 
your fixed desire that I should choose the profession ol law for 



172 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW 

the business of my life. I am very much rejoiced that you accede 
so readily to my proposition of studying general literature for 
one year at Cambridge. My grand object in doing this will be 
to gain as perfect a knowledge of the French and Italian lan- 
guages as can be gained without traveling in France and Italy, — 
though, to tell the truth, I intend to visit both before I die. . . . 
' ' But you must acknowledge the usefulness of aiming high, — 
at something which it is impossible to overshoot — perhaps to 
reach. The fact is, I have a most voracious appetite for knowl- 
edge. To its acquisition I will sacrifice everything. . . . 
Nothing delights me more than reading and writing. And 
nothing could induce me to relinquish the pleasures of literature, 
little as I have yet tasted them. Of the three professions I 
should much prefer the law. I am far from being a fluent 
speaker, but practice must serve as a talisman where talent is 
wanting. I can be a lawyer. This will support my real exist- 
ence, literature an ideal one.' 11 

It will be seen from these letters that Longfellow's 
plans were to spend a year at Harvard College, Cam- 
bridge. His hope was that it would open the way to 
the pursuit of a literary career, but if not, then the study 
and practice of law would be followed. However, his 
future profession was finally settled for him in 1825 by 
the appointment as professor of modern languages and 
literature at Bowdoin College. He was then but nine- 
teen years old, and had been out of college only six 
months. It is said that his appointment was the direct 
result of his very fine translation, while in college, of 
one of Horace's odes. When the chair was established 
and they were considering a fit candidate, the transla- 
tion was recalled by Mr. Benjamin Orr, a prominent 
lawyer of Maine, who was a lover of Horace. This 
gentleman was a member of the board of trustees, and 



PROFESSOR AT BOWDOIN 173 

nominated Longfellow. The appointment was received 
with great delight by Longfellow, for it settled the 
question. of his future profession. 

Before entering upon his duties, Longfellow spent 
three years in preparatory study in Europe, visiting 
France, Italy, Spain and Germany, making himself 
thoroughly familiar with the language of each country. 
Outre Mer, which was not published, however, until 
1835, is a very interesting account of his travels 
through these countries. 

Longfellow began his duties at Bowcloin College in 
September, 1829, remaining there for five years. As a 
professor, he was much loved by his pupils and highly 
esteemed by his associate professors. A member of the 
class of 1830 writes, 

"His manner was invariably full of that charming courtesy 
which it never lacked throughout his whole life. At the same 
time he never forgot his position. He was always on the alert," 
quick to hear, ready to respond. AVe were fond of him from 
the start ; his speech charmed us ; his earnest and dignified 
demeanor inspired us. A better teacher, a more sympathetic 
friend, never addressed a class of young men. 1 ' 

Longfellow entered upon his professional duties with 
so much earnestness and enthusiasm that during this 
period he wrote comparatively very little. His princi- 
pal work was a translation of a book upon the French 
language. This translation was used as a text-book, 
not only in Bowdoin, but in many other colleges and 
schools. It was used for fully twenty years after its 
first publication. He also contributed several essays to 



174 HENHY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

The North American Review, principally upon the lan- 
guages and literature of foreign countries. In July, 
1831, the first installment of The Schoolmaster appeared 
in The New England Magazine. This work appeared 
m a series of sketches at irregular intervals until 1833. 
The subject matter of these sketches was embodied in 
Outre Mer. 

In September, 1831, Longfellow married Miss Mary 
Storrer Potter of Portland. She was gentle, refined 
and highly educated, being a charming woman in man- 
ner and character. The first few years of their married 
life were spent in Brunswick, in a house which still 
stands amidst its elms on Federal Street. The room 
on the right of the entrance was fitted up as a study. 
Longfellow has given us a pretty picture of it : 

" June 23. I can almost fancy myself in Spain, the morning 
is so soft and beautiful. The tesselated shadow of the honey- 
suckle lies motionless upon my study floor, as if it were a figure 
in the carpet ; and through the open window comes the fragrance 
of the wild brier and the mock orange. The birds are caroling 
in the trees, and their shadows flit across the window as they 
dart to. and fro in the sunshine ; while the murmur of the bee, 
the cooino- of the doves from the eves, and the whirring- of a 
little humming bird that has its nest in the honeysuckle, send up 
a sound of joy to meet the rising sun. 1 ' 

Longfellow received an invitation in December, 1834, 
to become professor of modern languages and literature 
at Harvard College, Cambridge, permission being given 
him at the same time to spend a year. or more abroad, 
if he thought it necessary. The choice was suggested 
by Professor Ticknor, who wished to retire from the 



FOOTSTEPS OF ANGELS 175 

position. The invitation was a great surprise to Long- 
fellow. He gladly accepted it, as it gave hirn a larger 
field of work. 

Accompanied by his wife, he departed for Europe in 
the spring of 1835. His purpose, as before, was to 
thoroughly prepare himself for his new position. He 
visited England and the countries of northern Europe. 
During their stay at Amsterdam in October, 1835, Mrs. 
Longfellow became seriously ill. She recovered suffi- 
ciently to travel to Rotterdam, but again became ill in 
that city, where she died, November 29, 1835. He has 
immortalized her memory in Footstejjs of Angels. 

When the hours of Day are numbered, 

And the voices of the Night 
Wake the better soul that slumbered, 

To a holy, calm delight ; 

Ere the evening lamps are lighted, 
And, like phantoms grim and tall, 

Shadows from the fitful firelight 
Dance upon the parlor wall ; 

Then the forms of the departed 

Enter at the open door ; 
The beloved, the true-hearted, 

Come to visit me once more ; 



And with them the Being Beauteous, 
Who unto my youth was given, 

More than all things else to love me, 
And is now a saint in heaven. 



176 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

With a slow and noiseless footstep 

Comes that messenger divine, 
Takes the vacant chair beside me, 

Lays her gentle hand in mine. 

And she sits and gazes at me 

With those deep and tender eyes, 
Like the stars, so still and saintlike, 

Looking downward from the skies. 

Footsteps of Angels. 

In November, 1836, Longfellow was formally ap- 
pointed " Smith professor of French and Spanish lan- 
guages and literature, and professor of belles-lettres " at 
Harvard College. He began his duties in December, 
holding the professorship until 1854. He performed 
his tasks here, and they were many and trying, with 
the same faithful earnestness as at Bowdoin. His pu- 
pils and associates respected and loved him. His man- 
ner was gentle and dignified, and entirely devoid of any 
display of authority or knowledge. His work proved 
of great advantage to the college, and it also benefited 
him, for it brought him in contact with the literary 
men of the day. 

Among the many happy incidents of Longfellow's 
residence in Cambridge, was the renewal of acquaint- 
ance with his classmate, Nathaniel Hawthorne. A deep 
and sincere friendship was formed between them, and 
each became an enthusiastic admirer of the other's 
works. 

In the summer of 1837, Longfellow made his home 
with Mrs. Craigie, at the famous Craigie House. This 
house was built by Colonel John Vassal in 1759. As 



LONGFELLOW'S HOME 



177 



Colonel Vassal remained loyal to England during the 
Revolution, the house and grounds were confiscated to 
the State. It afterward passed into other hands, having 
several owners before it became the property of Long- 
fellow. The history of the house is interesting and 
remarkable because of the number of noted persons 
who have resided there, or have been guests for longer 



■:,,-• 





CRAIGIE HOUSE, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 



or shorter periods. General Washington used it for a 
time as his headquarters during the Revolution. In 
1793, Doctor Andrew Craigie purchased the mansion. 
Two of his notable guests were Talleyrand, the great 
French statesman, and the Duke of Kent, the father of 
Queen Victoria. Doctor Craigie lived very extrava- 
gantly, and, before his death, was forced to part with 



178 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW 

all but eight acres of the originally large estate. After 
his death, Mrs. Craigie rented the rooms of the house 
to students and professors of Harvard as a means of 
supporting herself. When Longfellow applied to Mrs. 
Craigie for a room, she assigned to him the southeast 
corner room on the second story, which was the one 
that had been occupied by General Washington. The 
room was in the front of the house, and commanded a 
view over the meadows to the Charles river. In the 
pages of Hyperion, he writes thus of his pleasant sur- 
roundings : 

"I sit here at my pleasant chamber-window, and enjoy the 
balmy air of a bright summer morning, and watch the motions 
of the golden robin that sits on its swinging nest on the outer- 
most pendulous branch of yonder elm. The broad meadows 
and the steel-blue river remind me of the meadows of Unterseen 
and the river Aar, and beyond them rise magnificent snow-white 
clouds piled up like Alps. Thus the shades of Washington and 
William Tell seem to walk together in these Elysian Fields ; for 
it was here, that, in days long gone, our great patriot dwelt; 
and yonder clouds so much resemble the snowy Alps that they 
remind. me irresistibly of the Swiss, noble example of a high pur- 
pose and a fixed w r ill. 

" Nothing can be more lovely than these summer mornings, 
nor the southern window at which I sit and write, in this old 
mansion which is like an Italian villa; but oh, this lassitude, 
this weariness, when all around me is so bright ! I have this 
morning- a, singular longing for flowers, — a wish to stroll among; 
the roses and carnations, and inhale their breath as if it would 
revive me. I wish I knew the man who called the flowers ' the 
fugitive poetry of Nature. 1 From this distance, from these 
scholastic shades, from this leafy, blossoming and beautiful 
Cambridge, I stretch forth my hand to grasp his, as the hand of 



TO THE llIvEB CHARLES 179 

a poet. Yes : this morning I would rather stroll with him 
among the gay flowers than sit here and write. 1 ' 

His poem, To the River Charles, has immortalized 
the river for all time. 

River ! that in silence windest 

Through the meadows, bright and free, 

Till at length thy rest thou findest 
In the bosom of the sea ! 

Four long years of mingled feeling, 

Half in rest, and half in strife, 
1 have seen thy waters stealing 

Onward, like the stream of life. 

Thou hast taught me, Silent River! 

Many a lesson, deep and strong; 
Thou hast been a generous giver ; 

I can give thee but a song. 

Oft in sadness and in illness, 

I have watched thy current glide, 

Till the beauty of its stillness 
Overflowed me, like a tide. 

And in better hours and brighter, 

When I saw thy waters gleam, 
I have felt my heart beat lighter, 

And leap onward with thy stream. 



To the Biver Charles. 

In 1839, Longfellow published Hyperion, A Romance. 
It really is an account of his second trip to Europe, 



180 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW 

dwelling especially on his journeying along the Rhine 
in southern Germany. The inscription on the eastern 
wall of the little chapel of St. Gilgen suggested the 
romance to him, and in fact became the motto of his 
life. It reads, 

' ' Look not mournfully into the past. It comes 
Not back again. Wisely improve the present. 
It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy 
Future without fear, and with a manly heart." 

Hyperion became very popular, and by 1857, about 
fifteen thousand copies had been sold in America. It 
did a great deal toward attracting the attention of 
American readers to the wealth and beauty of German 
literature. 

In the autumn of 1839, Longfellow published his 
first volume of poems, entitled Voices of the Night. It 
included five of his earlier pieces which had appeared 
in The United States Literary Grazette, twenty-three 
translations, some of which had appeared in The Knick- 
erbocker, or in The North American Review, and eight 
other poems, six of which had appeared in The Knicker- 
bocker ; also a poetic prelude. Among the poems in this 
volume is the famous Psalm of Life. It first appeared 
in The Knickerbocker in 1838. It is doubtful if any 
other poem has appealed to so many persons of all ages 
and all nationalities as the Psalm of Life. Several inter- 
esting incidents are told of the helpfulness, the comfort, 
the hope and the inspiration that it has been to many. 
The poet says of it, " It was written in my chamber, as 
I sat looking out at the morning sun, admiring the 



LONGER POEMS 181 

beauty of God's creations and the excellence of his 
plan. The poem was not printed until some months 
later, and even then with reluctance." 

In the autumn of 1841, appeared another volume of 
poems called Ballads and Other Poems. This volume 
was considered the best collection of poems that Long- 
fellow ever gave to the public. 

The poet again sailed for Europe in 1812. This 
time it was in search of health. He visited France, 
England and Germany and returned in the autumn. 
On his return voyage, he wrote eight poems against 
slavery. These were published under the title of 
Poems on Slavery. 

On July 13, 1843, Longfellow married Miss Frances 
Elizabeth Appleton. He had first made her acquaint- 
ance while traveling in Europe in 1836. She was the 
Mary Ashburton of his Hyperion. The following year 
Mr. Appleton purchased the Craigie estate and pre- 
sented it to his daughter, to be the future home of 
herself and husband. 

Of Longfellow's longer poems, published during the 
years of 1843-58, those that attracted almost universal 
attention, and became general favorites, are The Spanish 
Student, Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie, The Sony of 
Hiawatha, The Courtship of Miles Standish, and The 
Building of the Ship, which appeared in the volume of 
poems called The Seaside and the Fireside. 

His drama, The Spanish Student, was published 
shortly after his return from Europe. The Serenade 
in it is very beautiful, and has been set to music by 
several great composers. It begins : 



182 HENKY AVALVS WORTH LONGFELLOW 

" Stars of the summer night! 

Far in yon azure deeps, 
Hide, hide your golden light! 

She sleeps ! 
My lady sleeps ! 

Sleeps! 1 ' 

Evangeline is a beautiful and pathetic story based 
upon the historical facts of the expulsion of the Aca- 
dians from Nova Scotia. In A Fable for Critics, Lowell 
says of it: 

"... That rare, tender, virgin-like pastoral Evangeline, 
That's not aneient nor modern, its place is apart 
Where time has no sway, in the realm of pure Art, 
'Tis a shrine of retreat from Earth's hubbub and strife 
As quiet and chaste as the authors own life." 

The Building of the Ship is, perhaps, the most power- 
ful and eloquent of all of Longfellow's poems. It 
appeared at a most critical period in the political history 
of our country. Without doubt the eloquent patriotism 
of the following lines appealed to all : 

" Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State ! 
Sail on, O UNION, strong and great ! 
Humanity with all its fears, 
With all the hopes of future years, 
Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! 
We know what Master laid thy keel, 
What "Workman wrought thy ribs of steel, 
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, 
What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 
In what a forge, and what a heat 
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope ! 
Fear not each sudden sound and shock. 



DEATH OF MRS. LONGFELLOW 183 

'T is of the wave and not the rock : 

'T is but the flapping of the sail, 

And not a rent made by the gale ! 

In spite of rock and tempest's roar, 

In spite of false lights on the shore, 

Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea ! 

Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, 

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 

Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 

Are all with thee, — are all with thee ! " 

The Building of the Ship. 

The popularity of The Song of Hiawatha was re- 
markable both here and in Europe. Its unusual subject, 
the peculiar meter in which it is written, and the charm 
of the whole poem attracted universal attention. 

The Courtship of Miles Standish, a story of the early 
Puritan days, became another general favorite. 

At Commencement in 185-1, Longfellow resigned his 
position as professor at Harvard College, much to the 
regret of his pupils and the members of the faculty. 
He did not leave, however, Avithout providing a suc- 
cessor. At his suggestion, James Russell Lowell was 
appointed. After his resignation from Harvard, Long- 
fellow devoted all his time to literature. 

On Tuesday, July 9, 1861, Mrs. Longfellow, while 
making seals for the amusement of her youngest chil- 
dren, was fatally burned, her dress catching fire from a 
piece of burning wax. Though her husband hastened 
to her rescue, and the best medical aid was summoned, 
she died the following day. The poet was too severely 
injured in trying to subdue the flames to be able to 
attend the funeral. 



184 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW 

Longfellow never recovered from the shock of this 
great sorrow. He became rapidly old, though he bore 
his grief with manly reticence, never speaking of it 
even to his intimate friends. This second marriage, 
lasting for nearly twenty years, had been a period of 
complete happiness. During it, five children had been 
born to him, two sons and three daughters. 

Longfellow devoted twenty-five years to the transla- 
tion of the Divina Commedia by Dante, translating it 
line by line. For many years, a few moments only in 
the early, morning, while he was standing at his desk 
waiting for his coffee to boil, was all the time he gave 
to it. After the tragic death of his wife, he turned 
to the work for solace. When it was published in 
1867, it was pronounced by all scholars at home and 
abroad as the best translation of the poem. 

In May, 1868, Longfellow made his fourth visit to 
Europe, remaining a little more than a year. On June 
16, 1868, the university of Cambridge conferred upon 
him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws, amidst 
great enthusiasm from students and guests. In Juty, 
1869, the university of Oxford honored him with the 
degree of Doctor of Civil Law. While in England in* 
the summer of 1868, he visited Windsor Castle and 
had an interview with Queen Victoria. After he left, 
the queen paid the poet the following tribute : 

"The American poet, Longfellow, has been here. T noticed 
an unusual interest among the attendants and servants. I could 
scarcely credit that they so generally understood who he was. 
When he took leave, they concealed themselves in places from 
which they could get a good look at him as lie passed. I have 



THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH 185 

since inquired among them, and am surprised and pleased to 
find that many of his poems are familiar to them. No other 
distinguished person has come here that has excited so peculiar 
an interest. Such poets wear a crown that is imperisllable. ,, 

In Ballads and other Poems, The Village Blacksmith 
appeared. It begins, 

' < Under a spreading chestnut tree 

The village smithy stands ; 
The smith, a mighty man is he, 

With large and sinewy hands ; 
And the muscles of his brawny arms 

Are strong as iron bands. 1 ' 

This " village smithy " under the " spreading chest- 
nut tree " stood many years ago on Brattle street, 
Cambridge. The tree was eventually cut down and 
a dwelling house erected upon its site. From it was 
made the armchair which was given to Longfellow on 
his seventy-second birthday, February 27, 1879, by the 
children of Cambridge. Around the seat in raised 
German text are the lines : 

" And children coming home from school 

Look in at the open door ; 
They love to see the flaming forge, 

And hear the bellows roar, 
And catch the burning sparks .that fly 

Like chaff from a threshing-floor.'" 

The beautiful poem, From My Armchair, was the 
poet's response to the gift. The last verses are, 

And thus, dear children, have ye made for me 
This day a jubilee, 

And to my more than threescore years and ten 
Brought back my youth again. 



186 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW 

The heart hath its own memory, like the mind, 
And in it are enshrined 

The precious keepsakes, into which is wrought 
The giver's loving thought. 

Only your love and your remembrance could 
Give life to this dead wood, 
And make these branches, leafless now so long, 
Blossom again in song.'" 

The poet's last volume of poems was Ultima Thule, 
published in 1880. His last public appearance occurred 
in December of that year, at the celebration of the two 
hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of 
Cambridge. A thousand grammar school children were 
among the audience, and the poet gave his autograph 
to every one of them who wished it. 

In the summer of 1881, it became apparent to all 
that Longfellow's health was failing. During the fol- 
lowing year he was frequently ill. On March 18, 1882, 
he received his last visitors, two Boston boys, who had 
come to visit the poet and to see the Craigie House. 
After his young guests had gone, he became seriously 
ill. He died March 24, 1882, and he was buried in 
Mount Auburn Cemetery. England has honored his 
memory by placing a bust in the Poets' Corner in West- 
minster Abbey. 

An evidence of the popularity of Longfellow's poems 
is the fact that they have been translated, wholly or in 
part, into German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, 
Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Polish, Russian, Hebrew, 
Chinese, Japanese and Sanskrit. 

In order to appreciate the literary services which Long- 



THE POET'S SERVICE TO LITERATURE 187 

fellow rendered to this country, we must consider the 
condition of American literature in 1825. The fact is 
that a national literature hardly existed at that period. 
Washington Irving was the only American writer who 
had won any reputation at home and abroad. Cooper 
was just gaining a little attention, William Cullen Bry- 
ant was known to only a few, and Whittier, Holmes, 
Emerson, Hawthorne and Poe were still unknown. 
There were but few literary magazines, and their exis- 
tence was uncertain and short-lived. The publishing 
houses were few and small, and published principally 
reprints of English works. " It will thus be seen that 
American life was strangely prosaic ; and before it 
could feel the glow of its own poetry it must know 
something of the poetry of the past. This was Long- 
| fellow's first service to his countrymen. ' He was a 
1 mediator between the old and the new ; he translated 
I the romance of the past into the language of universal 
j life. Out of the closed volumes he gathered flowers 
that lay pressed and dead and odorless ; he breathed into 
them the breath of life, and they bloomed and were 
fragrant again. He came to the past as the south winds 
come to the woods in the spring ; and the trees put on 
their leaves, and the earth its mosses, and the dell its 
wild-flowers to greet him.' " 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

1807-1892 



He loved his friends, forgave his foes ; 

And, if his words were harsh at times. 
He spared his f ellowmen, — his blows 

Fell only on their crimes. 

He loved the good and wise, but found 

His human heart to all akin 
Who met him on the common ground 

Of suffering and of sin. 



His eye was beauty's powerless slave, 
And his the ear which discord pains ; 

Few guessed beneath his aspect grave 
What passions strove in chains. 



He worshiped as his fathers did, 
And kept the faith of childish days, 

And, howsoe'er he strayed or slid, 
He loved the good old ways. 



But still his heart was full of awe 
And reverence for all sacred things ; 

And, brooding over form and law, 
He saw the Spirit's wings. 



My Namesake. 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 



I know not what the future hath 

Of marvel or surprise, 
Assured alone that life and death 

His mercy underlies. 

And if my heart and flesh are weak 

To bear an untried pain, 
The bruised reed he will not break, 

But strengthen and sustain. 

The Eternal Goodness. 

Does it not seem strange that a farmer's son, living 
in a lonely valley, shnt in from the onter world of cul- 
ture and learning, with only the hills, the trees and the 
sky for his teachers, should become one of our great 
poets? Yet such was the case with John Greenleaf 
Whittier. Brought up on a farm in the lonely country, 
near no center of culture, having no advantages of edu- 
cation, in an austere household where denial of pleasure 
and obedience to duty was the law of his boyhood, with 
only the Bible for his reading for many years, yet he 
became the poet of New England and a foremost leader 
in the great cause of humanity, the freeing of the 
slaves. He not only sang of the beauty of the trees, 
the hills and the lakeside, of the goodness and the wis- 
dom of God, but his voice was raised in behalf of the 

193 



194 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

slaves, and his manhood devoted to their emancipation. 
Surely, he well deserves all his titles, — the Quaker 
Poet, the poet of New England, the prophet bard, the 
bard of a great historic time ! 

John Greenleaf Whittier was born December 17, 
1807, in a lonely farmhouse in the valley of the Merri- 
mac, about three miles northeast of Haverhill, Massa- 
chusetts. This little town was settled in 1640, by 
twelve men from Newbury and Ipswich. In a poem 
written in 1890 for its two hundred and fiftieth anni- 
versary, 1640-1890, Whittier gives its history in a 
very interesting manner. 

Gone steepled town and cultured plain, 

The wilderness returns again, 

The drear, untrodden solitude. 

The gloom and mystery of the wood ! 

Once more the bear and panther prowl, 
The wolf repeats his hungry howl, 
And, peering through his leafy screen 
The Indian's copper face is seen. 

We see, their rude-built huts beside, 
Grave men and women anxious-eyed, 
And wistful youth remembering still 
Dear homes in Ens-land's Haverhill. 



Slow from the plow the woods withdrew, 
Slowly each year the corn-lands grew ; 
Nor fire, nor frost, nor foe could kill 
The Saxon energy of will. 

And never in the hamlet's bound 
Was lack of sturdy manhood found, 



HAVERHILL 195 

And never failed the kindred good 
Of brave and helpful womanhood. 

That hamlet now a city is, 
Its log-built huts are palaces ; 
The wood-path of the settler's cow 
Is Traffic's crowded highway now. 

And far and wide it stretches still, 
Along its southward sloping hill, 
And overlooks on either hand 
A rich and many-watered land. 

And, gladdening all the landscape, fair 

As Pison was to Eden's pair, 

Our river to its valley brings 

The blessings of its mountain springs. 



Her sunsets on Kenoza fall, 
Her autumn leaves by Saltonstall ; 
No lavished gold can richer make 
Her opulence of hill and lake. 

Wise was the choice which led our sires 
To kindle here their household fires, 
And share the large content of all 
Whose lines in pleasant places fall. 

More dear, as years and years advance, 
We prize the old inheritance, 
And feel, as far and wide we roam, 
That all we seek we leave at home. 

Haverhill. 

The first Whittier to come to this country was 
Thomas " Whitier," the great-great-grandfather of our 
poet. He came to America in 1638, and settled at 



196 JOHN GREENLEAF WH1TTIER 

Salisbury, Massachusetts. He afterwards removed to 
Newbury, and later to Haverhill. He was of Puritan 
stock, but his sympathies were with the Quakers. His 
youngest son, Joseph, married the daughter of the 
well-known Quaker, John Peasley. As Whittier is 
descended in a direct line from this branch of the fam- 
ily, we see the reason for his being a Quaker, though 
the Whittiers were originally Puritans. Whittier's 
grandfather married Sarah Greenleaf after whom the 
poet was named. He writes of her in a little poem 
called The Home Coming of the Bride. 

Sarah Greenleaf, of eighteen years, 

Stepped lightly her bridegroom's boat within, 
Waving mid-river, through smiles and tears, 

A farewell back to her kith and kin. 
With her sweet blue eyes and her new gold gown, 

She sat by her stalwart lover's side — 
Oh, never was brought to Haverhill town 

By land or water so fair a bride. 
Glad as the glad autumnal weather, 

The Indian summer so soft and warm, 
They walked through the golden woods together, 

His arm the girdle about her form. 

The Home Coming of the Bride. 

Whittier's father married Abigail Hussey. The 
Husseys were English. So much of the history of his 
ancestors is necessary to show the stock from which he 
was descended, for he was one of those who resisted 
oppression and wrong, and fought heroically for truth. 
The Quaker influence is shown in his sincerity, self- 
abnegation and spiritual-mindedness.* 



198 JOHN G KEEN LEAF WHITTIEE 

The house in which our poet was born was built 
about 1688, by his great-great-grandfather, and remains 
about the same as when built. It is more open to view 
from the main road than it was when Whittier was 
born, the woods about it having been extensively 
cleared. The house, which is small and plain, was 
formerly two stories in front, and sloped down to one 
story in the back. This latter portion was raised and 
the dwelling otherwise improved by the poet's father 
in 1801. Since then, there has been some repairing 
done which gives the old house a modern look, but 
much of the original carpentry may be seen in the iron 
door handles, latches and hinges, made more than two 
centuries ago. The front door opens into a small entry, 
from which a steep, narrow staircase leads to the rooms 
above. On the left is the room where Whittier was 
born, and on the right, the parlor where he wrote. The 
small room above is the one he occupied when a boy. 
A flight of stairs leads up to it from the kitchen. It is 
this room he refers to in Snow-Bound, in the lines, 

Within our beds awhile we heard 
The wind that round the gables roared, 
With now and then a ruder shock, 
Which made our very bedsteads rock. 
We heard the loosened clapboards tost, 
The board-nails snapping in the frost; 
And on us, through the unplastered wall, 
Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall. 

Snow-Bound. 

Back of the house is the old orchard, and near it was! 
the barn. Near the orchard rises a clump of oaks- 

il 

I 
1 



THE OLD HOMESTEAD 199 

where the Whittiers for many generations were buried. 
The modern barn and other farm buildings are across 
the road, opposite the house. A short distance along 
the road is the Whittier elm. This elm is centuries 
old. It is eighteen feet in diameter at the smallest 
point, and casts a shadow at noon of one hundred feet 
in diameter. Beyond that is the old Garrison house, 
a place of refuge from the Indians, which the poet 
describes in The Boy Captives. 

The house faces the south, and between it and the 
road rises a grassy knoll at the foot of which flows the 
little brook mentioned in Snoiv-Bound and also in The 
Barefoot Boy. 

Laughed the brook for my delight 
Through the day and through the night, 
Whispering at the garden wall, 
Talked with me from fall to fall. 

The Barefoot Boy. 

We minded that the sharpest ear 
The buried brooklet could not hear, 
The -music of whose liquid lip 
Had' been to us companionship, 
And, in our lonely life, had grown 
To have an almost human tone. 

Snow-Bound. 

One of the pleasures of his boyhood was to go fishing 
in this little brook with his brother and uncle Moses. 
On this grassy slope was once a garden, and to the left 
a tall well-sweep. It is now replaced by a pump. We 
get a glimpse of all this in his Telling the Bees. 



200 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

Job's Hill, a knoll about three hundred feet high, is 
not far distant from the farm. It was a favorite resort 
of the boys and the cattle on the hot summer afternoons. 
Among the cattle were two oxen, Buck and Old Butler, 
which were great pets of the boys. They would sit on 
the heads of the oxen as they lay in the grass, and rest 
their arms on the oxen's horns as though they were arm- 
chairs. A story is told of how Old Butler saved Whit- 
tier's life at the risk of his own. One day, he was 
bringing some salt for the oxen. Old Butler espied him, 
and knowing what he had, started toward him with 
long strides down the hillside. The earth was loose and 
the incline very great. The ox was coming rapidly upon 
the boy, and he could not stop himself. He would have 
crushed him to death, but with a presence of mind that 
was almost human, he leaped into the air over Whit- 
tier's head, landing far below, but without injury. 

On the road from Haverhill to the Whittier farm, 
about a mile from the honse, is Kenoza lake, formerly 
called Great Pond. In 1859, the shores were improved 
for a park, and at its opening Whittier read the poem 
which gave to it the Indian name of Kenoza, meaning 
pickerel. 

Lake of the pickerel ! — let no more 

The echoes answer back, " Great Pond," 

But sweet Kenoza, from thy shore 
And watching hills beyond, 

Let Indian ghosts, if such there be 
Who ply unseen their shadowy lines, 

Call back the ancient name to thee, 
As with the voice of pines. 



SNOAV-BOUND 201 

The shores we trod as barefoot boys, 

The nutted woods we wandered through, 

To friendship, love, and social joys 
We consecrate anew. 



In sunny South and prairied West 
Are exiled hearts remembering- still, 

As bees their hive, as birds their nest, 
The homes of Haverhill. 



Long be it ere the tide of trade 

Shall break with harsh resounding din 

The quiet of thy banks of shade, 
And hills that fold thee in. 

Still let thy woodlands hide the hare, 
The shy loon sound his trumpet-note, 

Wind-weary from his fields of air, 
The wild goose on thee float. 

Kenoza Lake. 

The home circle consisted of father and mother, uncle 
Moses, his father's brother, aunt Mercy, his mother's 
sister, his sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, and his brother, 
Matthew Franklin. In Snow-Bound, the poet gives a 
beautiful picture of this home of his boyhood, portray- 
ing with tender, loving words each member of the fire- 
side group. 

Shut in from all the world without, 
We sat the clean-winged hearth about, 
Content to let the north wind roar 
In baffled rage at pane and door, 



202 JOHN GEEENLEAF WHITTIEE 

While the red logs before us beat 
The frost-line back with tropic heat ; 
And ever, when a louder blast 
Shook beam and rafter as it passed, 
The merrier up its roaring- draught 
The great throat of the chimney laughed. 

We sped the time with stories old, 
Wrought puzzles out, and riddles told. 

Our mother, while she turned her wheel 
Or run the new-knit stocking heel, 
Told how the Indian hordes came down 
At midnight on Cocheco town, 
And how her own great-uncle bore 
His cruel scalp mark to fourscore. 
Recalling, in her fitting phrase, 
So rich and picturesque and free, 
(The common unrhymed poetry 
Of simple life and country ways,) 
The story of her early days. 

Our uncle, innocent of books, 

Was rich in lore of fields and brooks, 

The ancient teachers never dumb 

Of Nature's unhoused lyceum. 

In moons and tides and weather wise, 

He read the clouds as prophecies, 

And foul or fair could well divine, 

By many an occult hint and sign, 

Holding the cunning-warded keys 

To all the woodcraft mysteries ; 

Himself to Nature's heart so near 

That all her voices in his ear 

Of beast or bird had meaning clear. 



204 JOHN GliEENLEAF WHITT1EH 

Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer 
And voice in dreams I see and hear, — 
The sweetest woman ever Fate 
Perverse denied a household mate, 
Who, lonely, homeless, not the less 
Found peace in love's unselfishness, 
And welcome wheresoe'er she went, 
A calm and gracious element, 
Whose presence seemed the sweet income 
And womanly atmosphere of home. 

There, too, our elder sister plied 
Her evening task the stand beside ; 
A full, rich nature, free to trust, 
Truthful and almost sternry just, 
Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act, 
And make her generous thought a fact, 
Keeping with many a light disguise 
The secret of self-sacrifice. 

As one who held herself a part 
Of all she saw, and let her heart 

Against the household bosom lean, 
Upon the motley braided mat 
Our youngest and our dearest sat, 
Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes, 

Now bathed in the unfading green 
And holy peace of paradise. 

Brisk wielder of the birch and rule, 
The master of the district school 
Held at the fire his favored place, 
Its w r arm glow lit a laughing face 
Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared 
The uncertain prophecy of beard. 



ANECDOTES 205 

He teased the mitten-blinded cat, 
Played cross-pins on my uncle's hat, 
Sang songs, and told us what befalls 
In classic Dartmouth's college halls. 

So days went on : a week had passed 

Since the great world was heard from last. 

The Almanac we studied o'er, 

Read and reread our little store 

Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score. 

At last the floundering carrier bore 

The village paper to our door. 

Lo ! broadening outward as we read, 

To warmer zones the horizon spread, 

In panoramic length unrolled 

We saw the marvels that it told. 

We felt the stir of hall and street, 
The pulse of life that round us beat. 
The chill embargo of the snow 
Was melted in the genial glow ; 
Wide swung again our ice-locked door, 
And all the world was ours once more ! 

Snow-Bound. 



Very few anecdotes of Whittier's boyhood have 
been preserved. In later years he himself related the 
following incident to a friend. 

When he was nine years old, President Monroe 
visited Haverhill, and on the same day a circns pitched 
its tents in the town. Whittier was not allowed to be 
present at either event. He did not care so much 
about the circus, but was bitterly disappointed at not 



206 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

seeing the president. The next day he trudged to 
Haverhill, determined to see at least the footprints of 
the great man. In the circus parade, there was an ele- 
phant whose footprints were plainly visible in the road 
over which the procession had passed. When Whittier 
came to these, he was at once convinced that they 
must be the footprints of President Monroe, the great- 
est man in America, and he reverently followed them 
as far as they could be traced. 

One of his childish fears was of a gander, the leader 
of a flock of geese that he and. his father met every 
time they went on a certain journey. In going up hill, 
the boy and his father would get out of the wagon and 
walk. The gander would take this opportunity to run 
after them, hissing and flapping his wings in a most 
alarming manner. This used to frighten Whittier very 
much, and he would have been glad to be safe in the 
wagon, but he did not like to admit that he was afraid. 
This stage of the journey was always greatly dreaded 
by him. 

Another experience of fear was with the Country 
Bridge Ghost. This was a headless spirit which was 
supposed to haunt the " Country Bridge." Upon being 
dared by some of his playmates to run across this bridge 
after sundown, Whittier promised not only to cross it, 
but to call for the ghost to come forth. He kept his 
promise, but when he approached the bridge fear over- 
came his brave resolutions, and, although he called 
loudly for the ghost, he ran so fast he never knew 
whether it answered his summons or not. 

Whittier went to school when he was seven years 



TO MY OLD SCHOOLMASTER 207 

old. He had very little opportunity, however, for an 
education, as the school term only lasted during the 
three winter months and there was usually a new mas- 
ter every term. At one time, the school was kept in a 
private house, while the school-building was undergoing 
repairs. The schoolmaster, who became his lifelong 
friend, was Joshua Coffin. He tells us of this teacher 
and these school days in his poem, To My Old School- 
master. 

Old friend, kind friend ! lightly down 
Drop time's snow-flakes on thy crown ! 
Never be thy shadow less, 
Never fail thy cheerfulness. 



I, the urchin unto whom, 
In that smoked and dingy room, * 
Where the district gave thee rule 
O'er its ragged winter school, 
Thou didst teach the mysteries 
Of those weary A B C's, — 
Where, to fill the every pause 
Of thy wise and learned saws, 
Through the cracked and crazy wall 
Came the cradle-rock and squall, 
And the goodman's voice, at strife 
With his shrill and tipsy wife, — 
Luring us by stories old, 
With a comic unction told, 
More than by the eloquence 
Of terse birchen arguments 
(Doubtful gain, I fear), to look 
With complacence on a book ; — 



208 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

I, — the man of middle years, 
In whose sable locks appears 

Many a warning fleck of gray, 

Looking back to that far day, 
And thy primal lessons, feel 
Grateful smiles my lips unseal, 
As, remembering thee, I blend 
Olden teacher, present friend. 

To My Old Schoolmaster. 

The site of the old schoolhouse where Whittier at- 
tended school is marked by a wooden slab on a tall post 
set back from the roadside. On it is written, " Here 
Whittier went to school." The following description 
of the schoolhouse is taken from In School Days : 

Still sits the schoolhouse by the road 

A ragged beggar sleeping ; 
Around it still the sumachs grow, 

And blackberry -vines are creeping. 

Within, the master's desk is seen, 

Deep scarred by raps official ; 
The warping floor, the battered seats, 

The jack-knife's carved initial ; 

The charcoal frescos on its wall ; 

Its door's Worn sill, betraying 
The feet that, creeping slow to school, 

Went storming out to playing ! 

In School Days. 

If there was little time or opportunity for education 
at school, there was less at home, for here his reading 



THE BAREFOOT BOY 209 

was still more limited. There were only twenty vol- 
umes in the house and they were nearly all journals of 
the pioneers of the Friends' Society. His reading in 
those early days was mostly from the Bible. To this 
constant Bible reading may be attributed the accurate 
knowledge of Bible history so apparent in his poems. 
Other reading consisted of the almanac and the vil- 
lage weekly newspaper. 

His boyhood was simple and uneventful. He at- 
tended school when he could, worked on the farm or 
helped his mother in the performance of her home du- 
ties. Sometimes on Sundays, the boy would be taken 
with his parents to the Friends' meeting-house. This 
was at Amesbury, about eight miles distant from the 
farm. The Whittiers made the journey in an old- 
fashioned chaise, and when the boy was crowded out, 
he would spend the day wandering in the woods, or on 
the lake shore or climbing Job's Hill. In his poem, 
The Barefoot Boy, Whittier describes himself in those 
early days. 

Blessings on thee, little man, 
Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan ! 
With thy turned-up pantaloons, 
- And thy merry whistled times ; 
With thy red lip, redder still 
Kissed by strawberries on the hill ; 
With the sunshine on thy face, 
Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace ; 
From my heart I give thee joy, — 
I was once a barefoot boy ! 



210 JOHN GEEENLEAF WHITTIER 

Oh for boyhood's painless play, 
Sleep that wakes in laughing day, 
Health that mocks the doctor's rules, 
Knowledge never learned of schools, 
Of the wild bee's morning chase, 
Of the wild-flower's time and place, 
Flight of fowl and habitude 
Of the tenants of the wood ; 
How the tortoise bears his shell, 
How the woodchuck digs his cell, 
And the gronnd-mole sinks his well ; 
How the robin feeds her young, 
How the oriole's nest is hung ; 
Where the whitest lilies blow, 
Where the freshest berries grow, 
Where the ground-nut trails its vine, 
Where the wood-grape's clusters shine; 
Of the black wasp's cunning way, 
Mason of his walls of clay, 
And the architectural plans 
Of gray hornet artisans ! 
For, eschewing books and tasks, 
Nature answers all he asks ; 
Hand in hand with her he walks, 
Face to face with her he talks, 
Part and parcel of her joy, — 
Blessings on the barefoot boy ! 

All too soon these feet must hide 
In the prison cells of pride, 
Lose the freedom of the sod, 
Like a colt's for work be shod, 
Made to tread the mills of toil, 
Up and down in ceaseless moil : 
Happy if their track be found 
Never on forbidden ground ; 



BOYHOOD 211 

Happy if they sink not in 
Quick and treacherous sands of sin. 
Ah ! that thou couldst know thy joy, 
Ere it passes, barefoot boy ! 

The Barefoot Boy. 

So passed the lonely days of boyhood and youth on 
the farm, free from all outside disturbances and in- 
fluences, surrounded by the beauties of nature and the 
pure moral atmosphere of his Quaker home. Very 
little was heard from the outside world. Visits of 
traveling Friends would occasionally break the monot- 
ony of the home. Sometimes tramps would come to 
the house, very often receiving a kindly welcome. The 
visits of these beggars, or old stragglers as they were 
then called, were events of considerable interest in 
the lonely farm life. Many of them visited the farm 
at regular intervals and became well known. In his 
Yankee Gipsies, Whittier gives an interesting account 
of these visitors. To one, a wandering Scotchman, he 
owes his first knowledge of the poet Burns. This man 
after eating his bread and cheese, and drinking his 
cider, sang for them Bonnie Boon, Highland Mary and 
Auld Lang Syne. The incident seems unimportant, yet 
in the Quaker home, where music was not allowed, this 
first introduction to the beautiful Scotch ballads opened 
to the boy a new world. When he was fourteen years 
old, his attention was again attracted to the Scotch poet. 
His teacher, Joshua Coffin, brought to the house a vol- 
ume of Burns's poems, from which he read, greatly to 
the boy's delight. Whittier borrowed the book, taught 
himself the dialect, and read and reread the poems. 



212 JOHN GKEENLEAF WHITTIER 

This was Whittier's first knowledge of poetry, and 
it made a lasting impression upon him. The verses 
awakened feeling and thought before unknown. During 
the next few years, he tried to shape his own thoughts 
in rhyme in imitation of Burns. These, however, were 
not his first efforts, for when he was a boy of seven, he 
used to write verses instead of doing his sums. Like 
the plant closed within the dark cells of a seed, the 
innate talent was there ; it only needed the poetry of 
Burns to awaken it. In his poem, Burns, he speaks of 
this first acquaintance with his poetry and of the older 
poet's influence upon him, in a very beautiful manner. 

Wild heather bells and Robert Burns ! 

The moorland flower and peasant ! 
How, at their mention, memory turns 

Her pages old and pleasant ! 

The gray sky wears again its gold 

And purple of adorning, 
And manhood's noonday shadows hold 

The dews of boyhood's mornino-. 



I call to mind the summer day, 
The early harvest mowing, 

The sky with sun and clouds at play, 
And flowers with breezes blowing. 



How oft that day, with fond delay, 
I sought the maple's shadow, 

And sang with Burns the hours away, 
Forgetful of the meadow ! 



BURNS 213 

Sweet clay, sweet songs ! The golden hours 
Grew brighter for that singing, 

© © O ' 

From brook and bird and meadow flowers 

A dearer welcome bringing:. 

© © 

New light on home-seen Nature beamed, 

New glory over Woman ; 
And daily life and duty seemed 

No longer poor and common. 

I woke to find the simple truth 

Of fact and feeling better 
Than all the dreams that held my youth 

A still repining debtor : 



With clearer eyes I saw the worth 
Of life among the lowly ; 

The Bible at his Cotter's hearth 
Had made my own more holy. 



Through all his tuneful art, how strong 

The human feeling gushes ! 
The very moonlight of his song 

Is warm with smiles and blushes ! 

Give lettered pomp to teeth of Time, 

So " Bonnie Doon " but tarry ; 
Blot out the Epic's stately rhyme, 

But spare his Highland Mary. 

Burns. 

During this period, William Lloyd Garrison, who was 
only three years older than Whittier, was writing for 
the Newburyport Herald. He was the great abolition- 
ist that awakened the national conscience to the sin of 



214 JOHN G KEEN LEAF WHITTIER 

slavery. In 1826, he established The Free Press, to 
which the Whittier family subscribed. In this paper, 
in 1826, appeared Whittier' s first published poem, The 
Exile's Departure. The poem had been sent to the 
paper by his sister Mary without his knowledge. One 
summer day, while he was mending fences with some 
of the older members of the family, the postman came 
along and, taking a copy of The Free Press from the 
saddle-bags, threw it to them. Whittier took the 
paper, opened it, saw his poem in the poet's corner, 
and read his lines with delight again and again, all 
work being forgotten for the time. So began his career 
as a poet. 

Shortly after the publication of this poem, while 
working in the fields one day, word was brought to 
Whittier that a stranger had driven to the house and 
had asked for him. As visitors were very unusual, the 
boy was much astonished. He hesitated about seeing 
his caller, but his sister induced him to appear. He 
entered the house by the back door that he might dress 
properly before he presented himself to the stranger, 
who proved to be Garrison, the young and enthusiastic 
editor of The Free Press. His sister Mary had revealed 
the authorship of The Exile's Departure to Garrison, 
and he had come out to the farm on a friendly visit of 
encouragement. This was the first meeting of the two 
young men, and the beginning of that life-long friend- 
ship which had, upon Whittier at least, such a strong 
influence. In a poem written some years after this 
first meeting, in 1833, Whittier expresses his love for 
Garrison. 



WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON 215 

I love thee with a brother's love, 

I feel my pulses thrill, 
To mark thy spirit soar above 

The cloud of human ill. 
My heart hath leaped to answer thine, 

And echo back thy words, 
As leaps the warrior's at the shine 

And flash of kindred swords ! 



Have I not known thee well, and read 

Thy mighty purpose long ? 
And watched the trials which have made 

Thy human spirit strong ? 
And shall the slanderer's demon breath 

Avail with one like me, 
To dim the sunshine of my faith 

And earnest trust in thee ? 

To William Lloyd Garrison. 

The words of praise and encouragement from Garri- 
son made a deep impression on the young poet, and had 
great weight with his family. Garrison spoke to the 
boy's father about his ability, and advised and urged 
his being better educated. Though the family were 
well-to-do farmers for that period, still there was no 
money that could be used for the boy's education, so it 
did not seem possible at first to act upon the advice. 
However, a way was found, and that through the boy's 
own effort. One of the helpers on the farm, who made 
ladies' shoes during the winter months, offered to teach 
Whittier the trade. The offer was eagerly accepted. 
During the next winter, Whittier earned enough money, 
making ladies' slippers at twenty-five cents a pair, to 



216 JOHN GBEENLEAF WHITTIER 

pay for six months' schooling, board and a snit of 
clothes. He calculated the cost so closely and lived 
so economically that at the end of six months, he had 
just twenty-five cents left. 

In April, 1827, when he was in his twentieth year, 
Whittier went to the Academy at Haverhill. As the 
academy was just opened and in a new building, there 
was a formal dedication for which Whittier wrote an 
ode that was sung. He remained in Haverhill six 
months, leaving every Friday to spend Saturday and 
Sunday at home. His regular studies were the ordi- 
nary English branches but he also took lessons in 
French. His work in prose composition was surpris- 
ingly good from the first, and he immediately estab- 
lished a good record in all his work. His standing at 
school, the fact that he had written a hymn for the open- 
ing of the Academy, and had had some verses printed, 
attracted a great deal of attention to him and made him 
quite a person of distinction in the town of . Haverhill. 

He is described at that period as being tall, slight, 
erect, very handsome and distinguished-looking, with re- 
markably beautiful eyes. He was very shy, grave, and 
quiet in manner, but there was an undercurrent of fun 
and wit also. He was always extremely courteous, and 
had a keen sense of truth and justice. Then, as always, 
he was much loved by children. In later years, when 
he had his home at Amesbury and at Oak Knoll, Dan- 
vers, Massachusetts, he had many friends among the 
little ones. He was often spoken of by the children of 
Amesbury as " the man who owns the parrot." The 
parrot, called Charlie, had belonged to his sister Mary. 



OAK KNOLL 



217 



When she died he took care of it. It was a great talker, 
and would often even after having been well fed, say 
again and again, " What does Charlie want ? " This 
bird and its oft repeated question became the subject 
of a poem entitled The Common Question. 

Med Hiding Hood is a poem about a little girl friend, 




OAK KNOLL, DANVERS, MASSACHUSETTS 

who, clad in her red cloak, went out on the snow-cov- 
ered lawn and fed the blue jays and the squirrels with 
nuts and corn. 

At Oak Knoll, Whittier had another dear little friend 
named Phoebe. She considered him her especial play- 
fellow. One day, after romping with her, he said, " She 
is seventy, I am seven, and we both act like sixty." 



218 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIEE 

At the close of his first term, the autumn of 1827, 
Whittier had his first and only experience as a teacher. 
He taught the district school at Amesbury during the 
following winter. In the spring, he returned to the 
Academy and passed another six months in study. 

While in Haverhill, Whittier boarded with Mr. A. 
W. Thayer, the editor and publisher of The Haverhill 
Gazette. As early as 1828, he wrote poems for this 
paper, and continued his contributions for nearly forty 
years. 

In the autumn of 1828, Whittier obtained a place as 
a regular writer for The American Manufacturer of Bos- 
ton. This position had been obtained for him by Gar- 
rison, who, his Free Press being a failure, had gone to 
Boston and established The National Philanthropist. As 
Whictier's salary w T as very small and his help needed 
on the farm, he returned to his home in the early sum- 
mer of 1829 and remained there until the summer of 
1830. 

During the years from 1830 to 183 % -Whittier did r 
great deal of writing both in prose an< . verse for the 
different papers of that period. Though many of the 
pieces are not of value in themselves, s ^ the constant 
writing was excellent practice. During this period, he 
edited The Haverhill Gazette, and The New England 
Review of Hartford for a year and half. Of th 
many poems published in the review, i retained only 
three in the later editions of his works : $he Frost Spirit 
The City of the Plain, The Vaudois Teacher. The las 
poem was translated many years ag In :o French, and 
was believed by the Protestants of jie lower Alps to 



CAREER AS EDITOR 219 

be an original French poem. When the people learned 
that it was written by an American, at a general as- 
semblage of their churches, an affectionate address was 
sent to Whittier. 

After Whittier became editor of the Review, he spent 
part of the time in Hartford, and part at the farm on 
account of his father's failing health. His father died 
in June, 1831. Whittier then went to Hartford for a 
short period, leaving his mother and sisters in charge of 
the farm. His own want of health, however, forced 
him to give up the newspaper drudgery in January, 
1832, and to return again to the farm where he re- 
mained during the year. 

In February, 1831, he published a volume called 
New England Legends in Prose and Verse. 

After his return from Hartford, Whittier thought 
long upon the question of slavery, its contradiction to 
free institutions in a free country and to all .Christian 
teachings. A*ter having studied the subject long and 
thoughtfully, ) i printed, in 1833, a pamphlet on slavery 
and abolition. For many years after this, his pen was 
never idle, and his writings in prose and verse were de- 
voted to the F ;; irpose of freeing the slaves. 

An anti-slavery society was formed in Haverhill in 
April, 1 834, < 1 which Whittier was made secretary. 
In 1835 he s elected to the state legislature, and 
this, with the exception of once being a presidential 
elector, was tl only political position he held, his ad- 
vocacy of abolition tending to make him unpopular 
with many. ' \ 

As Whittier ct /oted his life more and more to the 



220 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

cause of freedom and the brotherhood of man, his life 
became more closely linked with that of Garrison's, and 
both are part of the history of that great moral struggle, 
the effort to awaken the conscience of the people to 
the sin of slavery, which preceded the Civil War. Gar- 
rison believed that the three great evils to be attacked 
were slavery, war and intemperance. As the years 
passed by, Whittier sacrificed all possible ease and leis- 
ure,, the companionship of scholars and all prospect of 
literary renown, yielding more and more to the influence 
of Garrison, with whom he stood unswervingly for truth 
and freedom. His poem on Sumner may well be applied 
to himself as he started on his career as an abolitionist. 

In referring in after years to this period of his life, 
Whittier says, " I had thrown myself with a young 
man's fervid enthusiasm into a movement which com- 
mended itself to my reason and conscience, to my love 
of country, and my sense of duty to God and my fellow- 
men." 

From the time of his father's death in 1831, until 
1837, Whittier managed the farm, sometimes engaging 
help, but always doing a good share of the work him- 
self. The income, as usual, was very small, so every 
farm product was used either in the house or given in 
exchange for other things that were needed. In the 
autumn he would drive his team to Rock Bridge on 
the Merrimac, carrying vegetables and apples to be ex- 
changed for salt fish. It was a life of toil and hardship, 
a struggle with poverty, but a strong will and a cheer- 
ful and contented mind lightened the burden. Though 
he wrote much, it was for a cause that had but few 



CONTINUED STRUGGLES 221 

followers, so his income from that source ivas but 
slight. In 1836, he again became the editor of the 
Gazette in Haverhill, but he gave it up in a few months. 

In 1837, Whittier went to Philadelphia to write for 
The Pennsylvania Freeman, a paper devoted to the anti- 
slavery cause, of which he became the editor in 1838. 
The office of the Freeman, which was in Pennsylvania 
Hall, was sacked and burned by a mob in May, 1838, 
the entire building being destroyed. Whittier resigned 
this editorship in March, 1810, and left Philadelphia 
the following May. 

The old homestead was sold in 1810, and the family, 
consisting of mother, aunt, and younger sister, moved 
to Amesbury. Here Whittier joined them on his re- 
turn from Philadelphia. He made this his legal resi- 
dence, though he spent much of his time during the 
last few years of his life at Oak Knoll, Danvers, Mas- 
sachusetts. 

Whittier's life, from the time he moved to Amesbury. 
was uneventful. For five years or more following this 
removal, he was earnestly engaged in working for the 
anti-slavery cause. It was done in straitened circum- 
stances, for he had to depend on his writings for sup- 
port. His standing as a great poet had not yet been 
established, and the fact that he was an abolitionist was 
sufficient to exclude his writings from many magazines 
and newspapers. He wrote constantly, however, for 
those papers that sympathized with his views, and fre- 
quently went from town to town trying to create a feel- 
ing against slavery. The one break in his residence in 
Amesbury was the six months that he lived in Lowell, 



222 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

while writing for The Middlesex Standard. Some of 
these articles were afterwards reprinted under the title 
The Stranger in Lowell. 

The home circle gradually narrowed. His sister 
Mary had been married some years before to Mr. Jacob 
Caldwell who once was publisher of the Haverhill 
G-azette. She died in 1861. His aunt, Mercy Hussey, 
died in the spring of 1846. His mother lived until 
1857. She had the happiness of seeing her son prop- 
erly appreciated as a poet. 

Whittier speaks thus tenderly of his mother : " All 
that the sacred word mother means in its broadest and 
fullest significance, our mother was to us — a friend, 
counselor, companion, ever loving, gentle and unself- 
ish." 

His sister Elizabeth was his closest and most sympa- 
thetic companion. Her death occurred in 1864. She 
was, like her brother, an active worker in the anti-sla- 
very cause, and bore, with him, with grave patience the 
insults of riotous mobs. As her nature was retiring, 
she took but little part in public demonstrations. She 
wrote poetry from her fifteenth year, and her poems are 
full of tender feeling and reveal her spiritual nature. 
In Hazel Blossoms, Whittier has printed a few of her 
poems. He exercised, however, as much severity of 
judgment in making the selections as he did in regard 
to his own works. As a result, many of her poems 
which were well worth reprinting, can only be found 
in the periodicals where they first appeared. It was 
of this sister that he wrote in The Tent on the 
Beach, 



LAYS OF MY HOME 22'3 

" the dear 
Memory of one who might have tuned my song 
To sweeter music by her delicate ear." 

The first volume of poems for which Whittier re- 
ceived any remuneration was the one published in 1843, 
entitled Lays of my Home and Other Poems. This little 
book contained poems that have become great favor- 
ites. In this collection, the poet gives glimpses of him- 
self and of his friends. He paints charming pictures 
of the beautiful Merrimac and the scenery of the river- 
valley. 

In order to fully understand and rightly value Whit- 
tier's position in the group of America's great poets, 
close study and a complete knowledge of the great 
moral conflict for the freedom of the slaves is neces- 
sary. The desire to abolish slavery in the United 
States was not one that united the entire North against 
the entire South. The small party of men and women 
who looked upon slavery within the boundaries of a 
free country as a national disgrace and contrary to all 
Christian teaching, also had opposed to them a large 
part of the North itself. Even the churches forgot 
the teachings of Christ and the brotherhood of man. 
Some clergymen actually preached in defense of the 
slaveholder. When Garrison attacked them with quo- 
tations from the Scriptures, he was called an infidel. 
After awhile these friends of the slave were looked 
upon as a distinct sect, and were separated from reli- 
gious bodies as rigorously as were the first Quakers. 
The abolitionists were everywhere insulted, their public 
meetings mobbed, and their places of meeting burned to 



224 JOHN GkEENLEAF WHITTIEk 

the ground by their Northern neighbors. The criminal 
laws were consulted to find excuse for their arrest and 
imprisonment, juries were urged to indict them, and 
governors of states offered rewards for their heads. 
These persecutions not only occurred in the large cities, 
but even in the small towns of such a state as Massa- 
chusetts. This malicious feeling was displayed not 
merely by the low, ignorant classes, but by the cultured, 
educated and wealthy. As we look back upon that 
period, we are shocked at the outrages committed 
against these brave workers for truth and freedom. 

This treatment did not turn Whittier from his pur- 
pose. He had been brought up in a home where duty 
to God and to man was the principal influence. He 
became a most earnest worker, and of all our poets did 
the most for abolition. From 1832 to the close of the 
war in 1865, his peri was always busy. Every impor- 
tant event connected with that long and dreadful contest 
brought forth from his heart poems that are strong, in- 
spiring, arousing. That they fulfilled their mission 
there is little doubt. They had a wide circulation, and 
were read in % the schools and in the homes. They 
reached the hearts of the people. When the final 
struggle, the Civil War, came, the result of the work 
of Whittier and that small band of abolitionists was 
seen by the loyal response to arms. Their earnest and 
constant endeavors also made the Emancipation Proc- 
lamation possible. 

As poetry was a means not an end with Whittier, as 
his purpose was to reach the heart and conscience of 
men, the anti-slavery poems are not as remarkable for 



ANTISLAVERY POEMS 225 

beauty of thought and form as are those relating to other 
incidents and calmer periods of his life. If his censure 
seemed harsh and severe at times, it was because he felt 
so keenly the importance of the occasion and the hour. 
These poems were written at the call of duty, and they 
are an earnest and eloquent protest against slavery. 
They are strong, religious, hopeful. Being associated 
with his toils and triumphs, they show his inmost feel- 
ings when most deeply touched. 

The poems of this group are numerous. It is diffi- 
cult to trace all to their first publication. Many of 
them, however, were printed in The Liberator, The 
Emancipator, The Anti-slavery Standard, The Haverhill 
Gazette and The National Era. In the latest edition 
of Whittier's works, they are to be found under the 
headings of Anti-slavery Poems, In War Time and 
After the War. 

The poem, Expostulation, was called forth by a 
speech of a German patriot, Dr. Charles Follen. In 
his speech he condemned in eloquent language the 
crime of a free country holding men in bondage. The 
poem is strong, forcible, almost harsh. 

Hunters of Men is a protest against the action of the 
American Colonization Society whose plan was that 
the free blacks should be sent to Africa, and that there 
should be no emancipation unless the negroes were sent 
out of the country immediately upon obtaining their 
freedom. 

Stanzas for the Times refers to a proslavery meeting 
in Faneuil Hall, the so-called " Cradle of Liberty." 
At this meeting, a demand was made for the suppression 



226 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

of free speech, for it was claimed it would interfere 
with the interests of commerce. 

At a meeting of the General Association of Congre- 
gational Ministers of Massachusetts in 1837, a pastoral 
letter was sent to the churches under its care. Its 
purpose was to discourage all discussion, especially the 
public speaking of women, upon the subject of slavery. 
This letter was aimed principally against Sarah and 
Angelina Grimke, two women of Carolina, who had 
been slave-owners, but had become staunch defenders 
of freedom. Whittier's reply, The Pastoral Letter, is 
filled with sarcasm and indignation. 

Texas, To Faneuil Hall, To Massachusetts, The 
Pine Tree, To a Southern Statesman and At Washing- 
ton are all poems in which Whittier expresses the 
intense feeling of the anti-slavery party concerning the 
annexation of Texas, for the friends of slavery held that 
the new territory was large enough to form six slave 
states. The first poem was written at the suggestion 
of Lowell, who appealed to Whittier to " cry aloud and 
spare not against the accursed plot." 

The first real, encouragement which the abolitionists 
received was the formation in 1848 of a national anti- 
slavery party. This party was led by Martin Van 
Buren. The great joy felt by the abolitionists over 
this event was beautifully expressed by Whittier in 
the Pwan. 

The Crisis relates to the terms of the treaty of peace 
with Mexico. A Sabbath Scene was called forth by the 
eagerness with which the clergymen, even of the North, 
urged the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law. 



AN OPPONENT OF WAR 227 

The Kansas Emigrants, For Righteousness' Sake, A 
Letter and Burial of Barbour are poems which refer to 
the settlement of Kansas and the conflicts which took 
place between the antislavery and the proslavery 
settlers. The Kansas Emigrants was sent to the first 
company of settlers as they started upon their journey 
across the prairies. It was sung by them when they 
started, it was sung by them during their journey, it 
was sung in their new homes. 

The poems written during the Civil War, In War 
Time, are few and full of sadness and anxiety. A 
Quaker, the friend of peace, could hardly Avrite war 
poems. The idea of war was most abhorrent to 
Whittier. To him, it was only murder. He did not 
favor forcing the South by war to free the slaves. His 
feeling on this subject is plainly expressed in the poem, 
A Word for the Hour. 

To John 0. Fremont refers to an incident that 
occurred during the early part of the war. Fremont 
had charge of the army of the West. A number of 
slaves came into his lines whom he proclaimed free. 
President Lincoln annulled his proclamation and later 
relieved Fremont of his command. 

During this period of strife and suspense, Whittier's 
reliance and trust in the Power that makes for right- 
eousness, will be seen in Thy Will Be Done, The 
Battle Autumn of 1862, The Watchers, and Ein Feste 
Burg ist Unser G-ott. 

Barbara Frietehie is the only romantic ballad in this 
group of poems. 

Laus Deo is a beautiful poem full of gratitude for 



228 JOHN GREENLEAF WH1TTIER 

the abolition of slavery by the constitutional amend- 
ment. Its ratification by the states was announced 
December 18, 1865. Whittier sat in the Friends' 
meeting-house in Amesbury when the good news was 
proclaimed by the ringing of bells. The poem " wrote 
itself, or rather sang itself, as the bells rang," for he 
recited a portion of it to some associates before it was 
written. 

It is done ! 
Clang of bell and roar of gun 
Send the tidings up and down. 

How the belfries rock and reel ! 
How r the great guns, peal on peal, 
Fling the joy from town to town ! 

Ring, O bells ! 

Every stroke exulting tells 
Of the burial hour of crime. 

Loud and long, that all may hear, 

Ring for every listening ear 
Of Eternity and Time ! 

Let us kneel : 
God's own voice is in that peal, 

And this spot is holy ground. 

Lord, forgive us ! What are we, 
That our eyes this glory see, 

That our ears have heard the sound ! 



It is done ! 
In the circuit of the sun 

Shall the sound thereof go forth. 
It shall bid the sad rejoice, 
It shall give the dumb a voice, 

It shall belt with joy the earth ! 



ICHABOD 229 

Ring and swing, 
Bells of joy ! On morning's wing- 
Send the song of praise abroad ! 
With a sound of broken chains 
Tell the nations that He reigns, 
Who alone is Lord and God ! 

Laus Deo. 

The Peace Autumn in After the War expresses the 
same spirit of glad thankfulness. 

Among the group of personal poems which bear upon 
the anti-slavery struggle are two of unusual interest. 
Brotvn of Ossawatomie relates to John Brown's kiss- 
ing the child of a slave mother when he . was being 
led on his way to his execution. Ichabod, meaning the 
glory has departed, refers to the great conciliatory 
speech of Daniel Webster in March, 1850. The result 
of this speech was the passage of the Fugitive Slave 
Law. The poem is strong and beautiful, and was writ- 
ten more in grief than in anger over the loss of a great 
leader, and his descent from the high position which he 
had previously held. Some years after, Whittier ex- 
pressed in The Lost Occasion the same grief and 
regret, but in milder language. At the time of the 
writing of Ichabod, remembering the great cause at 
stake, none but the strongest language seemed possible 
to the poet. Ichabod is equaled by no other poem of 
the same nature in the English language. 

In the history of no other conflict for human rights 
do we find poems that make such a direct appeal to the 
heart, conscience, honor and valor of man. Bryant, 
Longfellow and Emerson gave aid with timely words 
and the influence of their names to the cause of free- 



230 JOHN GREEN LEAF WHITT1ER 

dom. Lowell employed all his sarcasm and wit in its 
behalf, but Whittier seemed to live for no other pur- 
pose than to sound the call to duty, duty to God and 
man. At the celebration of the thirtieth anniversary 
of the founding of the American Anti-slavery Society, 
Garrison, who presided, made an impressive speech in 
which he referred to the services Whittier had rendered 
to the cause. He said, " I have no words to express 
my sense of the value of his services. There are few 
living who have done so much to operate upon the 
public mind and conscience and heart of our country 
for the abolition of slavery as John Greenleaf Whittier." 
Ill health prevented Whittier from attending this 
gathering. In his letter of congratulation, he says, " I 
set a higher value on my name as appended to the anti- 
slavery declaration of 1833 than on the title page of 
any book. Looking over a life marked by many errors 
and shortcomings, I rejoice that I have been able to 
maintain the pledge of that signature, and that in the 
long intervening years, 

'My voice, though not the loudest, has been heard 
Wherever Freedom raised her cry of pain.'" 

In reading carefully Whittier's poems, it will be 
seen that all of suffering humanity appealed to him. 
He dwells upon the wrongs of the Indian, protests 
against capital punishment, and expresses his sympathy 
for the prisoner for debt. 

Whittier's writing was not confined wholly to poetry. 
Much excellent prose came from his pen, but it did not 
make the deep and lasting impression that his poems 



PROSE WRITINGS 231 

have made. Among the most interesting of his prose 
works are Literary Recreations, Old Portraits, a collec- 
tion of biographical sketches, and Margaret Smith's 
Journal, which is considered his best effort. 

In 1857, when Whittier had reached his fiftieth year, 
a complete edition of his poems was published. He 
had already won his position in literature. He was 
well known as a man with high moral ideals, and his 
place among the great poets was established. The same 
year The Atlantic Monthly was organized, and he was 
invited to be one of its contributors with Longfellow, 
Lowell, Emerson and Holmes. The Atlantic was the 
first magazine of high rank which considered the great 
moral question of the day. In fact, it discussed all 
moral and political questions with the greatest freedom. 
Whittier's poems during the first few years were largely 
upon general subjects, for he left the discussion of all 
grave questions to the editors. 

The contributors to the Atlantic would meet socially 
once a month, but as Whittier's health was feeble, the 
result of his years of privations and hard toil, he rarely 
attended these meetings. In this way, he was deprived 
of the pleasure of interchanging thoughts and opinions 
with his literary associates. His increasing ill health 
forced him to a life of seclusion, and as the years passed 
on, the publication of a poem became the only event in 
his life. 

In 1860, appeared another volume of poems, Home 
Ballads, Poems and Lyrics. Among the poems were 
Kenoza Lake, Brown of Ossawatomie and Telling the 
Bees. This last poem refers to a custom in New Eng- 



232 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

land of telling the bees when a death occurred in a 
family, and of draping their hives in mourning, to pre- 
vent their seeking a new home. It is a very beautiful 
idyl. All the bits of description in it are pictures of 
the old homestead of his childhood. 

Snow-Bound was published in 1866. It is a true and 
very charming description of country life in New Eng- 
land in the days of Whittier's boyhood. Parts of it 
were quoted in describing the poet's home circle, but 
the whole poem should be studied in order to under- 
stand its full beauty. It is the very best expression of 
Whittier's poetic ability. It immediately became a 
very great favorite, and added much to Whittier's fame. 
In it, he refers with sadness to the changes that Time 
had wrought in that fireside group. 

O Time and Change ! — with hair as gray 

As was my sire's that winter day, 

How strange it seems, with so much gone 

Of life and love, to still live on ! 

Ah, brother! only I and thou 

Are left of all that circle now. 

Snow-Bou?id. 

His brother, Matthew Franklin, died in Boston, Janu- 
ary 7, 1883. When this brother was a baby, and his 
parents were talking about naming him, Whittier, then 
a little fellow, suggested that as his name was Green- 
leaf, his brother's name should be Peachleaf. 

The Tent on the Beach and Other Poems appeared in 
1867. It is the story of the poet, and his two friends, 
Bayard Taylor and James T. Fields, camping on Salis- 
bury beach, and telling stories of old times. The in- 



THE ETERNAL GOODNESS 233 

troduction is saddened by the memory of his sister's 
death, and he tells us, too, to think of his " enforced 
leisure of slow pain." Among the occasional poems in 
this volume are Our Master and The Eternal Goodness 
which are marked by deep religious feeling. The latter 
poem is a full expression of Whittier's creed. 

I walk with bare, hushed feet the ground 

Ye tread with boldness shod ; 
1 dare not fix with mete and bound 

The love and power of God. 

Ye praise His justice ; even such 

His pitying love I deem : 
Ye seek a king; I fain would touch 

The robe that hath no seam. 

The wrong that pains my soul below 

1 dare not throne above : 
] know not of His hate, — 1 know 

His goodness and His love. 

I dimly guess from blessings known 

Of greater out of sight. 
And, with the chastened Psalmist, own 

His judgments too are right. 

The Eternal Goodness. 

In School Days, from which we have quoted a de- 
scription of the schoolhouse, was published in 1870. 
It is a charming story of an incident in his friendship 
with a little girl classmate. 

Among the purely^ personal poems is My Triumph. 
In it, Whittier shows how indifferent he is to praise 
or fame ; that he thinks only of the good that has been 
done and of that which still can be accomplished. 



234 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

Hazel Blossoms was published in 1875 when Whittier 
was sixty-eight years old. The principal poem in this 
collection is the one to Charles Sumner, who died in 
1874. The poem was due to the poet's feeling of 
sincere friendsship and deep admiration for Sumner's 
career. It is a long poem of fifty verses, and shows 
careful study. It is a just and fine tribute to a Northern 
statesman who was intellectual, faithful, persistent and 
brave, and whose career was spotless. In this volume 
are a small number of his sister Elizabeth's poems. 

On December 17, 1877, the publishers of The Atlan- 
tic Monthly gave a dinner in honor of Whittier' s seven- 
tieth birthday. Among the men of eminence present 
were Emerson, Longfellow and Holmes. All contrib- 
uted words of praise in prose and verse. Emerson, 
instead of reading a poem of his own, paid Whittier 
the greater compliment of reading Iehabod. Whittier s 
seventieth birthday was not only celebrated by the 
publishers of The Atlantic Monthly in Boston, but 
magazines, newspapers, authors and a host of others 
remembered it with kind words and congratulations, — 
so warm a place had he won in the hearts of the people. 

In 1878, appeared At Eventide, which in many ways 
is a summary of Whittier's own life. 

The Lost Occasion, to which we have already referred, 
was one of a collection of poems that was published in 
1881. 

At Sundown appeared in 1890, when Whittier was 
eighty years old. It was printed only for his friends 
and was sent to them on his birthday. The affectionate 
dedication is to Edmund Clarence Stedman. In a re- 



LAST WRITINGS 235 

print of these poems, their number has been increased 
and contains his last writing, To Oliver Wendell 
Holmes, which Whittier sent to his friend on his eighty- 
third birthday. It is dated August 29, 1892, only nine 
days before Whittier died. It shows his brave and 
cheerful spirit, and his fine appreciation of his friend, 
whose work was quite different from his own. 

Among the thousands who with hail and cheer 

AVill welcome thy new year, 
How few of all have passed, as thou and I, 

So many milestones by ! 

We have grown old together ; we have seen 

Our youth and age between. 
Two generations leave us, and*to-day 

We with the third hold way, 

Loving and loved. If thought must backward run 

To those who, one by one, 
In the great silence and the dark beyond 

Vanished with farewells fond, 

Unseen, not lost ; our grateful memories still 

Their vacant places fill, 
And with the full-voiced greeting of new friends 

A tenderer whisper blends. 

The hour draws near, howe'er delayed and late, 

When at the Eternal Gate 
We leave the words and works we call our own, 

And lift void hands alone 

For love to fill. Our nakedness of soul 

Brings to that Gate no toll ; 
Giftless we come to Him, who all things gives 

And live because He lives. 

To Oliver Wendell Holmes. 



236 JOHN GKEENLEAF WHITTIER 

Whittier was stricken with paralysis September 3, 
1892. At the time, he was visiting friends at Hampton 
Falls, N. H. When the serious nature of his illness 
became apparent, his friends thought that he might 
want to return to Amesbury, as he had often expressed 
the wish that he might die where his beloved mother 
and sisters had lived and died. He was too ill to be 
moved, however, but he bore this last disappointment 
with the same old-time patience. He died September 
7, 1892. His poem, At Last, was recited by one 
of the group of relatives about his bedside as he 
quietly passed away. He was buried in the village 
cemetery of Amesbury, in the section reserved for the 
Society of Friends. ^Unseen, not lost," he yet lives, for 
from his life-work there emanates an influence that will 
always be felt. 

In glancing backward over the life of Whittier, it 
will be seen that none of the influences which sur- 
rounded the lives of our other poets, Emerson, Lowell, 
Longfellow, Holmes, and helped to form their charac- 
ters, came into the life of Whittier. He had nothing 
in common with them until very late in life. His life 
and work stand alone. On the lonely farm, in the 
little town of Haverhill, were to be found none of the 
culture and learning of Boston and Cambridge. The 
great world of literature was unknown to him for many 
years. College training he had none. Neither did he 
come from a stock of highly educated men and" women. 
For generations back his ancestors were simple, God- 
fearing folk. He began his life's, work with no knowl- 
edge of the usages and conventionalities of the world 



THE QUALITY OF HIS WORK 237 

outside of the home circle ; he was prepared for the 
battle with little education, but was sustained and for- 
tified by the desire to perform his duty to God and 
man. The standard by which he measured all things 
was the standard of Right. 

Whittier's literary methods and style are his own. 
His lack of education and the loneliness of those early 
years placed him outside of all literary, poetic or theo- 
logical influences. His devotion to abolition still fur- 
ther separated him from his fellow men. In the early 
days the effect of Burns may be seen, but it was not 
until late in life that he had the leisure to study the 
old masters. It was then he wrote : 

' ' I love the old melodious lays 
Which softly melt the ages throllg•h. ,1 

If, now and then, his poems show a lack of finish, an 
absence of that beauty of form which is found in some 
of the other poets, the spirit that breathes through them 
is beyond criticism. Love of truth, beauty and nature, 
and for man and God, are the strains of music heard in 
all. How hard the task, how brave the struggle, how 
great the heights he scaled ! 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 



1809-1894 



gre 



Where is this patriarch you are kindly greeting? 

Not unfamiliar to my ear his name, 
Nor yet unknown to many a joyous meeting 

In days long vanished, — is he still the same ? 



Yes, long, indeed, I've known him at a distance, 
And now my lifted door-latch shows him here ; 

I take his shriveled hand without resistance, 
And find him smiling as his step draws near. 



I come not here your morning hour to sadden, 
A limping pilgrim, leaning on his staff, — 

I, who have never deemed it sin to gladden 
This vale of sorrow with a wholesome laugh. 

If word of mine another's gloom has brightened, 

Through my dumb lips the heaven-sent message came 

If hand of mine another's task has lightened, 
It felt the guidance that it dares not claim. 

The Iron Gate. 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 



Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 

As the swift seasons roll ! 

Leave thy low-vaulted past ! 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free, 
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea ! 

The Chambered Nautilus. 

When a person thinks of an author, he usually thinks 
of a man who has devoted his life to the writing of 
books ; who has no interest in politics, who could 
understand medicine as little as a child, and to whom 
law is a puzzle, while in the matters of ordinary busi- 
ness, he is also unfortunately ignorant and unsuccess- 
ful. In short, the usual idea of an author, especially 
of a poet, is that he is incapable of taking part in the 
practical affairs of life, but belongs wholly to the world 
of intellect, where to weave the fancies of the imagina- 
tion in glowing words and dainty verse is his sole 
occupation. Yet the fact is that many of the greatest 
writers gained distinction in other professions, and it was 
because of this knowledge of many things beside writing 
words and making verses, this helpful knowledge of 
life and men, that they were enabled to become great 
writers. James Russell Lowell was one of our great 

243 



1>44 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

poets, but lie was also interested in public affairs, for 
lie loved his country and his country's honor beyond 
all things else, and well represented our nation's inter- 
ests at the Court of St. James. Henry Wadsworth 
Longfellow, the poet with whose works you are, per- 
haps, the most familiar, was a very successful and much 
loved professor at Bowdoin College and at Harvard 
University. Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose poetry is 
humorous, pathetic, beautiful, and whose prose is among 
the wittiest, was also a physician of profound knowledge 
and a writer of valuable essays upon medical subjects, 
whose opinion was respected by the greatest physicians. 
Oliver Wendell Holmes was born in an " old gambrel- 
roofed house " in Cambridge, Massachusetts, August 
29, 1809. In referring to his birthday, he said, " In 
the last week of August used to fall Commencement 
Day at Cambridge. I remember that week well, for 
something happened to me once at that time, namely, 
I was born." This " old gambrel-roofed house " stood 
between the sites how occupied by the Hemenway 
Gymnasium and the Law School of Harvard University. 
It was a spacious mansion, set well back from the road, 
with a generous expanse of common beside it, and tall 
American elms that overshadowed it. The poet says, 

' ' The old house was General Ward's headquarters at the break- 
ing out of the Revolution ; the plan for fortifying Bunker's Hill 
was laid, as commonly believed, in the southeast lower room, the 
floor of which was covered with dents, made, it was alleged, by the 
butts of the soldiers 1 muskets. In the house, too, General War- 
ren probably passed the night before the Bunker Hill battle, and 
over its threshold must the stately figure of Washington have 
often cast its shadow." 



246 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

When, years after, the old homestead became the 
property of Harvard University, Holmes wrote most 
regretfully of its destruction: 

"The 'Old Gambrel-rpofed House' exists no longer. . . . 
We may die out of many houses, but the house can die but once ; 
and so real is the life of a house to one who has dwelt in it, 
more especially the life of a house which held him hi dreamy 
infancy, in restless boyhood, in passionate youth, — so real, I 
say, is its life, that it seems as if something like a soul of it 
must outlast its perishing frame." 

To his friend, Lowell, he wrote : 

"Our old house is gone. I went all over it, — into every 
chamber and closet, and found a ghost in each and all of them, 
to which I said good-by. I have not seen the level ground 
where it stood. Be very thankful that you still keep your birth- 
place. This earth has a homeless look to me since mine has 
disappeared from its face." 

The Reverend Abiel Holmes, the father of the poet, 
apart from his severe religious belief, which was that 
of the early New England days, was a modest, kindly 
gentleman of culture. He had some literary ability, 
and wrote a few poems which were published in book 
form. His Annals of America, however, was the 
first accurate American history after the Revolution. 
Holmes's mother, Sarah Wendell, was a bright, well- 
educated woman, from whom he seemed to inherit his 
intellectual ability. His parents came from the best 
New England stock. The first Holmes to arrive in 
this country was John Holmes, who came from Eng- 
land to Woodstock, Connecticut, with the first settlers 
in 1686. The Wendells came from Holland about 
1640, and settled at Albany. 



ANCESTORS 247 

These facts about Holmes's ancestors are interesting 
because, as he has written: 

" The nest is made ready long beforehand for the bird which 
is to be bred in it and to fly from it. The intellectual atmos- 
phere into which a scholar is born, and from which he draws 
the breath of his early mental life, must be studied, if we will 
hope to understand it thoroughly/' 

Dorothy Quincy, celebrated by the poet in the follow- 
ing lines, was an ancestor of his and also of his wife. 

Grandmother's mother : her age, I guess, 
Thirteen summers, or something less ; 
Girlish bust, but womanly air; 
Smooth, square forehead with uprolled hair ; 
Lips that lover has never kissed ; 
Taper fingers and slender wrist ; 
Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade ; 
So they painted the little maid. 

On her hand a parrot green 

Sits unmoving and broods serene. 

Hold up the canvas full in view, — 

Look ! there's a rent the light shines through, 

Dark with a century's fringe of dust, — 

That was a Red-Coat's rapier-thrust ! 

Such is the tale the lady old, 

Dorothy's daughter's daughter, told. 

O Damsel Dorothy ! Dorothy Q. ! 
Strange is the gift that I owe to you ; 
Such a gift as never king 
Save to daughter or son might bring, — 
All my tenure of heart and hand, 
All my title to house and land ; 
Mother and sister and child and wife 
And joy and sorrow and death and life ! 



248 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

What if a hundred years ago 

Those close-shut lips had answered No, 

When forth the tremulous question came 

That cost the maiden her Norman name, 

And under the folds that look so still 

The bodice swelled with the bosom's thrill ? 

Should I be I, or would it be 

One-tenth another, to nine-tenths me ? 

Dorothy Q. 

Some years later the poet sent to his grandniece, 
Dorothy Quincy Upham, who was named after Dorothy 
Q., the following verses : 

Dear little Dorothy, Dorothy Q., 
What can I find to write to you ? 
You have two LPs in your name, it's true. 
And mine is adorned with a double-u, 
But there's this difference in the IPs, 
That one you will stand a chance to lose 
When a happy man of the bearded sex 
Shall make it Dorothy Q. + X. 

May Heaven smile bright on the blissful day 
That teaches this lesson in Algebra ! 
AVhen the orange blossoms crown ycur head, 
Then read what your old great-uncle said, 
And remember how in your baby-time 
He scribbled a scrap of idle rhyme, — 
Idle, it may be — but kindly, too, 
For the little lady, Dorothy Q." 

Of his childish impressions the poet wrote, 

" When the chick first emerges from the shell, the Creator's 
studio in which he was organized and shaped, it is a very little 
world with which he finds himself in relation. First the nest, 
then the hen-coop, by and by the barnyard with occasional pre- 



250 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

datory incursions into the neighbor's garden — and his little uni- 
verse lias reached its boundaries. Just so with my experience 
of atmospheric existence. The low room of the old house — the 
little patch called the front yard — somewhat larger than the 
Turkish rug beneath my rocking-chair — the back yard with its 
wood-house, its carriage house, its barn, and, let me not forget, 
its pigsty. These were the world of my earliest experiences. 
But from the western window of the room where" I was born, I 
could see the vast expanse of the Common, with the far-away 
' Washington Elm ' as its central figure — the immeasurably dis- 
tant hills of the horizon, and the infinite of space in which these 
gigantic figures were projected — all these, in unworded im- 
pressions — vague pictures swimming by each other as the eyes 
rolled without aim — through the lights and shadows which 
floated by them. From this center I felt my way into the crea- 
tion beyond. 

"Like all children, I began to speculate on the problems of 
existence at an early age. ... As for the government of the 
universe to which I belonged, my thoughts were very confused. 
The Deity was to me an Old Man, as represented in some of the 
pictures I had seen. Angels and Demons were his subjects, 
and fellow-inhabitants with myself in the planet on which I 
lived. . . . 

"The garret, the door of which I sometimes passed, but 
whose depths I never exj)lored until later in life, was full of 
unshaped terrors. There was an outhouse where old and broken 
furniture had been stored, which I shunned as if it had been 
peopled with living bipeds and quadrupeds in the place of old 
chairs and tables. 

" Two specters haunted my earliest years, the dread of mid- 
night visitors, and the visits of the doctor. I hardly know when 
I was not subject to fears when left alone in the dark. These 
terrors were vague, and different at different times. I could not 
say that I believed in ghosts, nor yet that I disbelieved in their 
existence, but the strange sounds at night, the creaking of the 
boards, the howling of the winds, the footfall of animals, voices 
heard from a distance and unaccounted for, — all such things 



CHILDHOOD 251 

kept me awake, restless, and full of strange apprehensions. 
These fears lasted, until, on the approach of adolescence, I became 
greatly ashamed of them. . . . The other source of distress was, 
as I have said, the visits of the physician. The dispenser of 
drugs that embittered my boyhood was Dr. William Gamage. 
He was an old man, associated principally in my mind with two 
vegetable products, namely: the useful though not comforting 
rhubarb, and the revolting and ever to be execrated ipecacu- 
anha. The dread of the last of these two drugs was one of my 
chronic miseries. . . . Such causes of unhappiness as those I 
have mentioned may seem trivial to persons of less sensibility 
than myself, but they were serious drawbacks to the pleasures 
of existence, and, added to the torture of tooth-drawing, made a 
considerable sum of wretchedness. 

' ' One of the greatest changes of the modern decades has been 
in the matter of heating and lighting. "We depended on wood, 
which was brought from the country in loads upon wagons or 
sledges. This was often not kept long enough to burn easily, 
and the mockery of the green-wood fire was one of my recollec- 
tions, the sap oozing from the ends, and standing in puddles 
around the hearth. 

"Some of my pleasantest Sundays were those when I went 
with my father, who was exchanging pulpits with a neighboring 
clergyman. We jogged off together in one of the old-fashioned 
two-wheeled chaises, behind a quiet horse, for the most part. I 
remember the house at Lexington at which we stayed, had a 
sanded floor instead of a carpeted one. 

" I never wanted for occupation. Though not an inventor, I 
was always a contriver. I was constantly at work with tools of 
some sort. I was never really a skillful workman, — other boys 
were neater with their jackknives than I. I had ingenuity enough 
to cut a ball in a cage, with a chain attached carved out of the 
same wood ; but my tendency was to hasty and imperfect work- 
manship. I was always in too much of a hurry to complete my 
work, as if linished when only half done. My imagination helped 
me into immense absurdities, in which, however, I found great de- 
light. Thus, before I had a pair of skates, I had made one skate 



252 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

of wood, which I had fastened on to my foot, and experimented 
with ' on the ditch, 1 a narrow groove which one could step across, 
but where I served my first apprenticeship in the art of skating. 
But the strongest attraction of my early ' teens ' was found in 
shooting such small game as presented, more especially small 
birds and squirrels. It sounds strangely now to say that my 
achievements as a sportsman were performed, not with a gun, 
such as is carried by the sportsman of to-day, not even with a 
percussion lock in use during the greater part of my manhood, 
but with the old flintlock, such as our grandfathers used in the 
Revolution. I do not think I ever used a percussion cap, but 
many a flint have I worn down in service. . . . An old ' king's 
arm ' had been hanging up in the store closet ever since I could 
remember. This I shouldered, and with this I blazed away at 
every living thing that was worthy of a charge of the smallest 
shot I could employ/' 

This ability to " contrive " was shown in later years 
by his inventing the hand stereoscope, which had a 
light frame that was easily held in one hand. Although a 
large number of them have been manufactured, Holmes 
derived no benefit, as he did not have his invention 
patented. The stereoscope in use before this was a 
large, clumsy case, too heavy to hold in the hand, and 
with room for only a small number of pictures. 

Holmes' schooling began early, and, as was custom- 
ary at that time, at a dame's school. At the age of 
ten, he went to a school at Cambridgeport where he 
stayed five years. Of his school days, he wrote, 

' ' My first schoolmaster, William Biglow, was a man of 
peculiar. character. ... He was of a somewhat Bardolphian as- 
pect, red in the face, and was troubled from time to time with 
headaches, which led to occasional absence from the place of 
duty. He was a good-natured man, a humorist, a punster ; but 
his good-nature had something of the Rip Van Winkle character. 



SCHOOL DAYS 253 

" I do not remember being the subject of any reproof or dis- 
cipline at that school, although I do not doubt I deserved it, for 
I was an inveterate whisperer at every school I ever attended. 
I do remember that once as he passed me, he tapped me on the 
forehead with his pencil, and said he ' couldn't help it if I would 
do so well, 1 a compliment which I have never forgotten." 

From Cambridgeport, Holmes went to Phillips Acad- 
emy at Andover, Massachusetts. He gives us a de- 
lightful picture of his boyish impressions in a poem 
entitled The School-Boy, read at the centennial celebra- 
tion of the foundation of Phillips Academy, 1778- 
1878. 

My cheek was bare of adolescent down 

When first I sought the academic town ; 

Slow rolls the coach along the dusty road, 

Big with its filial and parental load ; ' 

The frequent hills, the lonely woods are past, 

The schoolboy's chosen home is reached at last. 

I see it now, the same unchanging spot, 

The swinging gate, the little garden plot, 

The narrow yard, the rock that made its floor, 

The flat, pale house, the knocker-garnished door, 

The small, trim parlor, neat, decorous, chill, 

The strange, new faces, kind, but grave and still ; 

Two, creased with age, — or what I then called age, — 

Life's volume open at its fiftieth page ; 

One a shy maiden's, pallid, placid, sweet 

As the first snowdrop, which the sunbeams greet ; 

One the last nursling's ; slight she was, and fair, 

Her smooth white forehead warmed with auburn hair. 



Brave, but with effort, had the schoolboy come 
To the cold comfort of a stranger's home ; 



254 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

How like a dagger to my sinking heart 

Came the dry summons, " It is time to part" ; 

" Good-by ! " " Goo — ood-by ! " one fond maternal kiss. 

Homesick as death ! Was ever pang like this? . . . 

Too young as yet with willing feet to stray 

From the tame fireside, glad to get away, — 

Too old to let my watery grief appear, — 

And what so bitter as a swallowed tear ! 



How all comes back ! the upward slanting floor, — 

The master's thrones that flank the central door, — 

The long, outstretching alleys that divide 

The rows of desks that stand on either side, — 

The staring boys, a face to every desk, 

Bright, dull, pale, blooming, common, picturesque. 

Grave is the Master's look ; his forehead wears 
Thick rows of wrinkles, prints of worrying cares ; 
Uneasy lie the heads of all that rule, 
His most of all whose kingdom is a school. 
Supreme he sits ; before the awful frown 
That bends his brows the boldest eye goes down ; 
Not more submissive Israel heard and saw 
At Sinai's foot the Giver of the Law. 



As to the traveler's eye the varied plain 
Shows through the window of the flying train, 
A mingled landscape, rather felt than seen, 
A gravelly bank, a sudden flash of green, 
A tangled wood, a glittering stream that flows 
Through the cleft summit where the cliff once rose, 
All strangely blended in a hurried gleam, 
Rock, wood, waste, meadow, village, hillside, stream, 
So, as we look behind us, life appears, 
Seen through the vista of our bygone years. 



EARLY POEMS 255 

Yet in the dead past's shadow-tilled domain, 
Some vanished shapes the hues of life retain ; 
Unbidden, oft, before our dreaming eyes 
From the vague mists in memory's path they rise. 

The School-Boy. 

From Andover, Holmes went to Harvard College in 
the summer of 1825, thus becoming a member of " the 
famous class of '29," as it has been called, because of 
the distinction which many of the members gained in 
their different professions. Among them was Samuel 
Francis Smith, the author of " America." 

While at Harvard, Holmes " wrote poetry fiercely," 
as he himself afterward said, for a little monthly paper, 
called the Collegian. He said, " It was silly stuff, I 
suppose, but the papers have quoted some of it about 
as if they really thought it respectable." Among this 
" silly stuff," were The Dorchester Giant, The Specter 
Pig, Evening, By a Tailor, and several other equally 
well-known poems. The Dorchester Giant is his very 
amusing account of the presence of the pudding stones 
which are found in such quantities near Dorchester, 
Milton and Roxbury, Massachusetts. 

THE DORCHESTER GIANT 

There was a giaut in time of old, 

A mighty one was he ; 
He had a wife, but she was a scold, 
So he kept her shut in his mammoth fold ; 

And he had children three. 

It happened to be an election day, 

And the giants were choosing a king ; 



256 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

The people were not democrats then, 
They did not talk of the rights of men, 
And all that sort of thing. 

Then the giant took his children three, 

And fastened them in the pen ; 
The children roared ; qnoth the giant, " Be still ! " 
And Dorchester Heights and Milton Hill 

Rolled back the sound again. 

Then he brought them a pudding stuffed with plums, 

As big as the State-House dome ; 
Quoth he, " There's something for you to eat; 
So stop your mouths with your 'lection treat, 

And wait till your dad comes home." 

So the giant pulled him a chestnut stout, 

And whittled the boughs away ; 
The boys and their mother set up a shout, 
Said he, " You're in, and you can't get out, 

Bellow as loud as you may." 

Off he went, and he grow T led a tune 

As he strode the fields along ; 
'T is said a buffalo fainted away, 
And fell as cold as a lump of clay, 

When he heard the giant's song. 

But whether the story's true or not, 

It isn't for me to show ; 
There's many a thing that's twice as queer 
In somebody's lectures that w r e hear, 

And those are true, you know. 

What are those lone owes doing now, 

The wife and the children sad ? 
O, they are in a terrible rout, 
Screaming, and throwing their pudding about, 

Acting as they were mad. 



THE DORCHESTER GIANT 257 

They flung it over to Roxbury hills, 

They flung it over the plain, 
And all over Milton and Dorchester too 
Great lumps of pudding the giants threw ; 

They tumbled as thick as rain. 

Giant and mammoth have passed away, 

For ages have floated by ; 
The suet is hard as a marrow-bone, 
And every plum is turned to a stone, 

But there the puddings lie. 

And if, some pleasant afternoon, 

You , ll ask me out to ride, 
The whole of the story I will tell, 
And you shall see where the puddings fell, 

And pay for the punch beside. 

Just what was to be Holmes's life work, was a matter 
of considerable doubt during his college days. His 
father wished him to be a clergyman like himself, 
although he by no means insisted upon it. The son, 
however, had no inclination toward the ministry. He 
said, " I might have been a minister myself, for aught I 
know, if a certain clergyman had not looked and talked 
so like an undertaker." 

During his last year at college, Holmes wrote in a 
letter to a friend, " I am quite undecided what to 
study ; it will be law or physic, for I cannot say that 
I think the trade of authorship quite adapted to this 
meridian." Even after he was graduated from Har- 
vard, the question was not finally settled. He studied 
law at the Dane Law School, Cambridge, for a year, 
but the study was not pursued with much enthusiasm. 



258 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

It was during this year, 1830, that Holmes wrote 
that stirring poem, Old Ironsides. The historic frigate, 
Constitution, old and unseaworthy, was condemned by 
the Navy Department to be destroyed. Holmes read 
of it in the newspapers, and immediately wrote the 
protest, Old Ironsides. 

OLD IRONSIDES 

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down ! 
Long; has it waved on high 

© © ' 

And many an eye has danced to see 

That banner in the sky ; 
Beneath it rung the battle shout, 

And burst the cannon's roar ; — 
The meteor of the ocean air 

Shall sweep the clouds no more ! 

Her deck, once red with heroes 1 blood, 

Where knelt the vanquished foe, 
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood, 

And waves were white below, 
No more shall feel the victor's tread, 

Or know the conquered knee ; — 
The harpies of the shore shall pluck 

The eagle of the sea ! 

O better that her shattered hulk 

Should sink beneath the wave ; 
Her thunders shook the mighty deep, 

And there should be her grave ; 
Nail to the mast her holy flag, 

Set every threadbare sail, 
And give her to the god of storms, 

The lightning and the gale ! 



260 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

The poem was published in The Boston Daily Adver- 
tiser, and from that was copied into almost every paper 
in the country, awakening national indignation against 
an action done in the ordinary course of business. The 
Secretary of the Navy, who was much surprised at the 
indignation, withdrew his order. The frigate was 
saved, and a number of people of the United States 
heard for the first time of Oliver Wendell Holmes, a 
law student at Cambridge, who was one month past 
his majority. 

The next year, Holmes gave up law and began the 
study of medicine. In March, 1831, he wrote, 

" I must announce to you the startling- position that I have 
been a medical student for more than six months. I know I 
might have made an indifferent lawyer, — I think I may make 
a tolerable physician, — I do not like the one and I do like the 
other. And so you must know that for the last several months 
I have been quietly occupying a room in Boston, attending medi- 
cal lectures, and going to the Massachusetts Hospital. ... If 
you would die fagged to death like a crow with the king birds 
after him, — be a schoolmaster; if you would wax thin and 
savage, like a half-fed spider, — be a lawyer; if you would go 
off like an opium-eater in love with your starving delusions, — 
be a doctor.' 11 

Holmes studied for over two years at the private 
school of Dr. James Jackson. After he finished the 
course with Doctor Jackson, two years more of study 
in European hospitals was necessary, if he were to be 
more than a country doctor. His parents were not 
rich, but they made such sacrifices as were necessary to 
give their son this extra preparation for his profession. 
In the spring of 1833, when he was little more than 



IN PARIS 261 

twenty-one years old, Holmes was in Paris " at last, 
quietly established and almost naturalized," and " quite 
absorbed in study." There he worked diligently, going 
to the hospital at half-past seven every morning, where 
he heard lectures by the most prominent physicians and 
surgeons of France. He generally stayed there till ten 
o'clock, when he had breakfast. After breakfast, study 
was continued until five o'clock. In the evening, he 
sometimes went to the theater. He felt that his time 
was well spent, and that he was learning more in these 
two years in Paris than he would have done in a life- 
time of ordinary practice. 

During his sta}^ in Europe, Holmes did no literary 
work, as he was wholly absorbed in study, occupying all 
his time with it. The editor of The New England 
Magazine, an old friend of his, requested him to write 
for that publication. Holmes gave the following 
reasons for declining : 

"I am at the present moment living not merely the most 
laborious, but by far the most unvaried and, in its outward 
circumstances, most unexciting mode of life that I have ever 
lived. Nearly five hours in the day I pass at the bedside of 
patients, and you may imagine that this is no trifling occupation 
when 1 tell you that it is always with my note-book in my hand ; 
that I often devote nearly two hours to investigating a difficult 
case, in order that no element can escape me, and that T have 
always a hundred patients under my eye. Add to this the details 
and laborious examination cf all the organs of the body in such 
cases as are fatal — the demands of a Society of which I am a 
member — which in the course of two months has called on me 
for memoirs to the extent of thirty thick-set pages — all French, 
and almost all facts hewn out one by one from the quarry — 
and my out-of-door occupations have borne their testimony. . . . 



262 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

No, John, a heavier burden from my own science, if you will, 
but not another hair from the locks of Poesy." 

In December of 1835, Holmes returned from Europe. 
On his return to Cambridge, lie read before the mem- 
bers of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, his Poetry, in 
which he affectionately alludes to his boyhood. His 
beautiful tribute to the war-song, Marseillaise, is con- 
sidered the finest part of the poem. 

In the latter part of 1836, he published his first volume 
of poems. It was a collection of those that had appeared 
elsewhere. It contained, among others, Old Ironsides, 
the history of which you already know, the very attrac- 
tive poem To an Insect, and The Last Leaf, which be- 
came a great favorite, and was translated into French 
and German. These poems are full of rollicking good 
humor, of a swing which carries the reader along, and 
of a determination to see the bright side c lvp *» and to 
try to make others see it. This bright 
disposition was one of the Doctor's B 
traits during his whole life. 



TO AN INSECT 

I love to hear thine earnest voicf 

Wherever thou art h' i, 
Thou testy little dogmatist, 

Thou pretty Katydid ! 
Thou mindest me of £. 

Old gentlefolks are u 
Thou say'st an undisp 

In such a solemn w° 



TO AN. INSECT 263 

Thou art a female, Katydid ! 

I know it by the trill 
That quivers through thy piercing notes, 

So petulant and shrill ; 
I think there is a knot of you 

Beneath the hollow tree, — 
A knot of spinster Katydids, — 

Do Katydids drink tea ? 

tell me where did Katy live, 
And what did Katy do ? 

And was she very fair and young, 

And yet so wicked, too? 
Did Katy love a naughty man, 

Or kiss more cheeks than one ? 

1 warrant Katy did no more 

Than many a Kate has done. 

Dear me! Til tell you all about 
y fuss with little Jane, 
i Ann, with whom I used to walk 
^ often down the lane, 
all that tore their locks of black, 
1 wet their eyes of blue, — 
tell me, sweetest Katydid, 
aat did poor Katy do ? 

>! the living oak shall crash, 
hat stood f, or ages still, 

shall rend its mossy base 
under r down the hill, 
:ff1 >, Katydid 

.-word, to tell 
:l of the maid 
^ o ,she knows so well. 



264 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

Peace to the ever-murmuring race ! 

And when the latest one 
Shall fold in death her feeble wings 

Beneath the autumn sun, 
Then shall she raise her fainting ^oice, 

And lift her drooping lid, 
And then the child of future years 

Shall hear what Katy did. 

Holmes took his degree from Harvard in 1836, and 
this same year begun the practice of medicine in 
Boston. Here, in his office, " the smallest fevers were 
thankfully received." As a visiting physician, Dr. 
Holmes never had a very large practice, but as a 
lecturer and a college professor, he was very successful. 
The reason he was not a success as a physician was that 
most people at that time had an idea that a doctor 
must be old, white-haired and solemn. The ordinary 
doctor, even though he had lived all his life in some 
small town, never broadening his knowledge by visiting 
the large hospitals of his own country nor those of 
Europe, was preferred to Dr. Holmes, notwithstand- 
ing his three years of study and experience in Paris and 
Edinburgh. He, unfortunately, was brilliant, witty and, 
worst of all, a poet. Regarding this poor success as a 
physician, he wrote in later years, — 

"Besides — my prospects — don't you kno\v r that people won't 

employ 
A man that wrongs his manliness by laughing like a boy ? 
And suspect the azure blossom that unfolds upon a shoot, 
As if wisdom's old potato could not flourish at its root ? 



MARRIAGE 265 

It's a vastly pleasing prospect, when you're screwing out a 

laugh, 
That your very next year's income is diminished by a half ! " 

As we have said, he was very successful as a profes- 
sor, and a writer on medical subjects. In 1838, he was 
appointed Professor of Anatomy at Dartmouth College, 
which position he held for two years. 

In June, 1840, Holmes married Miss Amelia Lee 
Jackson, a lady who made an ideal wife for the doctor, 
as their happy married life shows. They had three chil- 
dren. The eldest son was Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., 
whose birth his father announced to his sister in the 
following letter: 

My Dear Ann, — Last evening between eight and nine there 
appeared at No. 8 Montgomery Place a little individual who may 
be hereafter addressed as 

Holmes, Esq. 

or 

The Hon. Holmes, M.C. 

or 

His Excellency Holmes, President, etc., etc., but who for 

the present is content with scratching his face and sucking his 
right forefinger. 

In' My Hunt After the Captain, Holmes gives a thrill- 
ing account of his search for this son, who had been 
wounded in battle, during the war of the Rebellion. 

He afterward became prominent in his profession, 
that of law, and Dr. Holmes wrote of him to a friend : 

" Thank you for all the pleasant words about the Judge. To 
think of it, — my little boy a Judge, and able to send me to jail 
if I don't behave myself. " 



266 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

The second child was a daughter, who died in 1889, 
and the third, another boy, who died in 1884. 

In 1847, Dr. Holmes was appointed Parkman Pro- 
fessor of Anatomy and Physiology in the Medical 
School of Harvard University. He also occasionally 
gave instruction in the use of the microscope. Teach- 
ing so many branches prompted him to say that he 
occupied " not a professor's chair, but a whole settee." 
Dr. Holmes held this professorship of anatomy for 
thirty-five years. 

At the University, the lectures frequently began at 
eight o'clock and continued until two. By this time 
the students were completely worn out by their close 
attention to five hours of continuous instruction. To 
Dr. Holmes was assigned the last hour, for, as one of 
the students has said, " No one but Dr. Holmes could 
have been endured under the circumstances." He was 
frequently greeted upon his entrance in the classroom 
with uproarious applause. With his bright, cheery 
disposition, his quaint and humorous comparisons, and 
the wit which sparkled through the whole lecture, he 
was able to hold the weary students' attention. Yet 
beneath the brightness and attractiveness of Dr. 
Holmes's lectures, were the solid foundation of fact 
and a thorough knowledge of his subject, so that the 
student listened not only with pleasure but with profit. 
Thus the very traits which had hindered him in his 
practice as a physician greatly aided him to succeed as 
a professor and a lecturer. 

Dr. Holmes delivered a large number of public lec- 
tures on literature and other general topics. In this he 



CONTRIBUTOR TO THE ATLANTIC 267 

was also very successful. At times he became very 
tired of it. " Family men," he said, " get dreadfully 
homesick." His health also suffered considerably from 
the exposure of country traveling. 

From 1849, for seven succeeding years, Holmes spent 
his summers at Canoe Place, the name of his home 
which he built on a part of the large estate that his 
great-grandfather had purchased, at Pittsfield, Massa- 
chusetts, The place was so called because of the 
mark, a canoe, with which the Indian sachem signed 
away the land. During these summer months, he deliv- 
ered lectures before the Berkshire Medical School at 
Pittsfield. At the Berkshire festivals, the poet was fre- 
quently called upon to write a poem, which he did in 
his usual wise and witty way. 

In 1857, a monthly magazine was started in Boston, 
of which James Russell Lowell was invited to become 
the editor. He accepted on the condition that Holmes 
should be the first contributor engaged. The condition 
was agreed to. Holmes was very much surprised at his 
friend's invitation to become a regular contributor, and 
was at first inclined to refuse, as he had for many years 
been too busy with other duties and studies to give 
any time to literature. However, Lowell insisted and 
Holmes yielded. He afterwards said, Lowell " woke 
me from a kind of literary lethargy in which I was half 
slumbering, to call me to active service." 

Holmes' first service to the new magazine was to 
christen it, for it was at his suggestion that it was 
called The Atlantic. His first contributions were a se- 
ries of papers entitled The Autocrat of the Breakfast 



268 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

Table. Holmes had published two papers under the 
same name many years before in The New England 
Magazine, which explains why he began the new papers 
with " I was just going to say, when I was interrupted." 
Previous to the publication of these papers, Holmes 
was known to only a small circle as a writer and a lec- 
turer, a wit and a brilliant conversationalist, but these 
papers made him well known not only in America but 
in Europe. They contained the brightest and best of 
the poet's thoughts, and as a whole are doubtless his 
finest work. In The Autocrat appeared The Chambered 
Nautilus, probably the most beautiful of Holmes's 
poems. 

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS 

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, 

Sails the unshadowed main, — 

The venturous bark that flings 
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings 
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, 

And coral reefs lie bare, 
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. 

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl ; 

Wrecked is the ship of pearl ! 

And every chambered cell, 
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, 
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, 

Before thee lies revealed, — 
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed! 

Year after year beheld the silent toil 
That spread his lustrous coil ; 
Still, as the spiral grew, 



THE CHAMBERED HAUTILUS 269 

He left the past year's dwelling for the new, 
Stole with soft step its shining archway through, 

Built up its idle door, 
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no 
more. 

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, 

Child of the wandering sea, 

Cast from her lap, forlorn ! 
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born 
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn! 

While on mine ear it rings, 
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that 
sings: — 

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 

As the swift seasons roll ! 

Leave thy low- vaulted past ! 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free, 
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea ! . 

Holmes's connection with The Atlantic was not sev- 
ered until his death, and the different publishers of the 
magazine were always the publishers of his writings. 

Following The Autocrat came The Professor at the 
Breakfast Table, published in The Atlantic, in 1859. In 
1871, appeared The Poet at the Breakfast Table. Both 
are written in mnch the same pleasing, conversational 
style as The Autocrat. 

The poems which Holmes had published since 1849, 
appeared in 1862, in a volume entitled Songs in Many 
Keys. In this collection was the beautiful ballad, Agnes. 

On July 4, 1863, the poet delivered an oration before 



270 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

the city authorities of Boston. This oration, The In- 
evitable Trial, was an eloquent, patriotic appeal to his 
countrymen to be true to their country and the cause 
of liberty. Not only was it of value and interest at 
that particular period, but it is still considered, aside 
from its patriotism, a very fine piece of prose literature. 
In Pages from an Old Volume of Life, published later, 
will be found My Hunt After the Captain, The Inevitable 
Trial, Cinders from the Ashes, and many other valuable 
essays. 

Holmes collected several of his different writings and 
published them, in 1866, under the title of Soundings 
from the Atlantic. In 1878, he wrote the biography of 
his lifelong friend, John Lothrop Motley. In 1884, a 
similar task, though a labor of love as before, again fell 
to him, that of writing the biography of his friend, 
Ralph Waldo Emerson, the great poet and philosopher. 

Besides his poetical works and the Breakfast-Table 
Series, which chiefly made him famous, Holmes wrote 
three novels. Elsie Venner was published in 1860, The 
Guardian Angel in 1867, and a A Mortal Antipathy 
in 1885. 

In 1882, Dr. Holmes resigned his professorship at 
Harvard University, a position which he had held for 
over thirty-five years. His class presented him with a 
silver loving-cup, on which was engraved the following 
lines, quoted from his own writings : 

" Love bless thee, joy" crown thee, God speed thy career.' 1 

Dr. Holmes, with his daughter, visited Europe in 
1886. He spent most of his time in England, where 



DEATH 271 

his writings were known and admired. He was most 
cordially received, and was overwhelmed with atten- 
tions. In 1880, Harvard had conferred upon him the 
degree of Doctor of Law. During his stay in England, 
Cambridge made him a Doctor of Letters, Edinburgh 
gave him the degree of Doctor of Laws, and Oxford 
made him Doctor of Civil Law. Iri memory of this 
journey, the Doctor wrote the volume Our Hundred 
Days in Europe. 

In 1888, Mrs. Holmes died, and his daughter, Mrs. 
Sargent, came to live with the Doctor. She, too, passed 
away during the next year. His eldest son, the only 
remaining child, then came with his wife, and stayed 
with his father for the rest of his life. In his last years, 
Dr. Holmes's eyesight began to fail him, though he 
never became totally blind. 

Dr. Holmes died peacefully in his chair, October 7, 
1894, — ""the last leaf upon the tree." 

" There's Holmes, who is matchless among you for wit; 
A Leyden jar always full-charged, from which flit 
The electrical tingles of hit after hit ; 
In long poems 't is painful sometimes, and invites 
A thought of the way the new Telegraph writes, 
Which pricks down its sharp little sentences spitefully 
As if you got more than you'd title to rightfully, 
And you find yourself hoping its wild father Lightning 
Would flame in for a second and give you a fright'ning. 
He has perfect sway of what I call a sham metre, 
But many admire it, the English pentameter, 
And Campbell, I think, wrote most commonly worse, 
With less nerve, swing, and fire in the same kind of verse, 



272 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

Nor e'er achieved aught in : t so worthy of praise 
As the tribute of Holmes to the grand Marseillaise. 



His are just the fine hands, too, to weave you a lyric 
Full of fancy, fun, feeling, or spiced with satiric 
In a measure so kindly, you doubt if the toes 
That are trodden upon are your own or your foes." 

Lowell: A Fable for Critics. 

It was just that estimate of, and admiration for, 
Holmes's literary ability that induced James Russell 
Lowell to insist upon his becoming a regular contribu- 
tor to The Atlantic, The debt of gratitude that is due 
to Lowell is well expressed by Holmes himself, who 
said, at the breakfast given him in 1879 by the publish- 
ers of The Atlantic : 

" But what I want especially to say here is, that I owe the 
impulse which started my second growth, to the urgent hint of 
my friend Mr. Lowell, and that you have him to thank, not only 
for his own noble contributions to our literature, but for the 
spur which moved me to action, to which you owe any pleasure 
I may have given, and I am indebted for the crowning hairiness 
of this occasion.'" 

It was at this famous breakfast that the poet read 
his beautiful poem, The Iron Crate,, a selection from 
which we have quoted at the beginning of this 
biography. 

Holmes is a national writer. Not in the sense, how- 
ever, of writing about any particular period of American 
life, or about the peculiarities of any section of our 
country, as Longfellow in his Evangeline, Hiawatha, and 
Miles Standish, Lowell in The Biglow Papers, and 



THE BOYS 273 

Whittier in his war poems, B%6t in the sense that there is 
a close mingling of the humorous and the pathetic, of 
shrewd common sense and beautiful thoughts. His 
style is unique : clear in expression, high in thought, 
graceful and lofty. 

There are in his poems suggestions of stories, and 
traditions of old Colonial days, as in Dorothy Q., 
Grandmother s Story of Bunker Hill Battle, and in the 
beautiful ballad of Agnes. There are also beautiful 
descriptive passages, high moral truths, and a constant 
recurrence of humor and pathos. 

Of all our American poets, Holmes was, without 
doubt, the best writer of " occasional verses," as they 
are called, being composed to celebrate some especial 
occasion. The most famous of these poems are those 
written for the annual meetings of the class of '29, con- 
tributed regularly from 1851 to 1894. In all of them 
is a tender pathetic touch which the bright sparkle of 
humor in them seems to hide from many readers. In 
The Boys, written for the class meeting in 1859, when 
the^" boys " were old men, the tears and the laughter 
are closely mingled. 

Has there any old fellow got mixed with the boys ? 
If there has, take him out, without making a noise. 
Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite S 
Old Time is a liar ! We're twenty to-night ! 

We're twenty ! We're twenty ! Who says we are more ? 
He's tipsy, — young jackanapes ! show him the door ! 
" Gray temples at twenty ? " — Yes ! white if we please ; 
Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there's nothing: can freeze ! 



274 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

We've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told, 
Of talking (in public) as if we were old : — 
That boy we call " Doctor," and this we call " Judge ; " 
It's a neat little fiction, — of course it's all fudge. 

That fellow's the " Speaker,' 1 — the one on the right; 
" Mr. Mayor," my young one, how are you to-night ? 
That's our " Member of Congress," we say when we chaff ; 
There's the « ' Reverend " What's his name ? — don't make me 
laugh. 

And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith, 
Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith ; 
But he shouted a song for the brave and the free, — 
Just read on his medal, " My country," " of thee ! " 

Yes, we're boys, — always playing with tongue or with pen, — 
And I sometimes have asked, — Shall we ever be men? 
Shall we always be youthful, and laughing, and gay, 
Till the last dear companion drops smiling away ? 

Then here's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray ! 
The stars of its winter, the dews of its May ! 
And when we have done with our life-lasting toys, 
Dear Father, take care of thy children, the boys. 

The Boys, 
1859. 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 



1819-1891 



There is Lowell, who's striving Parnassus to climb 
With a whole bale of isms tied together with rhyme, 
He might get on alone, spite of brambles and boulders, 
But he can't with that bundle he has on his shoulders, 
The top of the hill he will ne'er come nigh reaching 
Till he learns the distinction 'twixt singing and preaching ; 
His lyre has some chords that would ring pretty well, 
But he'd rather by half make a drum of the shell, 
And rattle away till he's old as Methusalem, 
At the head of a march to the last New Jerusalem. 

A Fable for Critics. 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 



And what is so rare as a day in June ? 

Then, if ever, come perfect days ; 
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune, 

And over it softly her warm ear lays ; 
Whether we look or whether we listen, 
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten ; 
Every clod feels a stir of might, 

An instinct within it that reaches and towers, 
And, groping blindly above it for light, 

Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers ; 
The flush of life may well be seen 

Thrilling back over hills and valleys ; 
The cowslip startles in meadows green, 

The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, 
And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean 

To be some happy creature's palace ; 
The little bird sits at his door in the sun, 

Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, 
And lets his illumined being o'errun 

With the deluge of summer it receives ; 
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, 
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings ; 
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, — 
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best ? 

Vision of Sir Launfal. 

This lovely passage from Sir Launfal shows Lowell 
to be truly a poet of nature. The picture of a rare 
day in June is so exquisite, so full, so complete that 
there is never a perfect day that the lines do not come 

279 



280 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 

back like the ever recurring strains of sweet music. 
They recall the beautiful summer day, with the bright 
sunlight, the deep blue sky, the trees and the birds, the 
buds and the blossoms. Sometimes the picture they 
bring is that of the seashore with its stretch of white 
sand, the great blue ocean, and the music of the 
waves upon the beach ; sometimes it is a bit of green 
woods with the birds flitting from bough to bough, 
and the blue sky peeping in between the leaves ; and 
sometimes the picture is a bit of meadow and a clump 
of trees in whose shadow one can lie and read and 
read or dream of all the beautiful things of life. The 
Vision of Sir Launfal is but one of the many poems 
that place Lowell in the front rank of American poets, 
and his works in both prose and poetry show him to 
be one of our best scholars. 

James Russell Lowell was born in Cambridge, Mas- 
sachusetts, February 22, 1819. The Lowells were 
descended from Percival Lowell (Lowle), who came 
from Bristol, England, in 1639 and settled at Newbury, 
Massachusetts. John Lowell, who was born in 1704 
and graduated from Harvard in 1721, was the first 
minister of Newburyport. His son, also John, took a 
prominent part in the forming of the state government 
after the Revolution. He was the author of the sec- 
tion of the Bill of Rights which abolished slavery in 
Massachusetts. Lowell, the manufacturing city, on the 
Merrimac, was named after the Rev. Charles Lowell, 
the father of the poet, and his brother, Francis Cabot 
Lowell, who were among the first colonists to discover 
a way of using the water power of New England. The 



ELM WOOD 281 

Russells were also of English descent. The first Rus- 
sell, Richard, settled at Charlestown, in 1640. The 
poet's mother, who was of Scotch origin, came from an 
old Orkney family. 

Lowell was most fortunate both in regard to his 
home life and the social influences that surrounded 
his boyhood. His father was a cultured, refined and 
gracious gentleman. His mother had a remarkable gift 
for languages and a great love for old songs and ro- 
mances. From her, Lowell inherited his poetic tem- 
perament and his love for the beauties of nature. He 
was the youngest child, and had two brothers and two 
sisters. Does it not seem very odd that so great a man 
should ever have been called " Baby Jamie " ? Yet 
such was his mother's pet name for him for many 
years. 

The home of Lowell was named Elm wood because of 
some old elms that stood in front of the house. It is in 
Cambridge, four miles from Boston. The house is a 
large, comfortable one, built in the colonial style. It is 
three stories high, and somewhat resembles the Craigie 
House. In a letter to a friend, written when he was a 
man of mature years, Lowell thus describes his favorite 
room : 

" Here I am in my garret. I slept here when I was a little 
curly-headed boy, and used to see visions between me and the 
ceiling, and dream that so often recurring dream of having the 
earth put into my hand like an orange. In it I used to be shut 
up without a lamp — my mother saying that none of her children 
should be afraid of the dark — to hide my head under the pil- 
lows, and then not to be able to shut out the shapeless monsters 
that thronged around me, minted in my brain. It is a pleasant 



282 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 



room, facing, from the position of the house, almost equally 
toward the morning and the afternoon. In winter I can see the 
sunset, in summer I can see it only as it lights up the tall trunks 
of the English elms in front of the house, making them some- 
times, when the sky behind them is lead-colored, seem of the 
most brilliant yellow. When the sun, towards setting, breaks 




elm wood, lowell's home 

out suddenly after a thunder-shower and I see them against an 
almost black sky, they have seemed of a most peculiar and daz- 
zling green tint, like the rust on copper. In winter my view is 
a wide one, taking in a part of Boston. I can see one long curve 
of the Charles, and the wide fields between me and Cambridge, 
and the flat marshes beyoud the river, smooth and silent with 
glittering snow. As the spring advances and one after another 
of our trees puts forth, the landscape is cut off from me piece by 



CAMBRIDGE THIRTY YEARS AGO 283 

piece, till, by the end of May, I am closeted in a cool and 
rustling privacy of leaves." * 

Elmwood stood fronting upon a lane between two 
roads. The house was surrounded by pleasant grounds, 
consisting of a garden, a lawn, an orchard and a large 
stretch of woodland. Though Elmwood was so near 
the city of Boston, yet at that time the whole district 
was quite rural. Between the house and the village of 
Cambridge was a long stretch of open space. To the 
east from the house, close to the Charles river, was a 
slight elevation called Symonds' Hill. The country 
back of Elmwood was a farming district, with stretches 
of woods and meadows. 

The following, taken from Lowell's Cambridge Thirty 
Years Ago, describes the region as it was in his child- 
hood : 

" Approaching it from the west by what was then called the 
New Road (so called no longer, for we change onr names as 
readily as thieves, to the great detriment of all historical asso- 
ciation), yon would pause on the brow of Symonds 1 Hill to enjoy 
a view singularly soothing and placid. In front of yon lay the 
town, tufted with elms, lindens, and horse-chestnuts. . . . Over 
it rose the noisy belfry of the College, the square, brown tower 
of the church, and the slim, yellow spire of the parish meeting 
house, by no means ungraceful, and then an invariable charac- 
teristic of JSTew England religious architecture. On your right, 
the Charles slipped smoothly through green and purple salt- 
meadows, darkened, here and there, with the blossoming black- 
grass as with a stranded cloud-shadow. ... To your left hand, 
upon the Old Road, you saw some half-dozen dignified old 
houses of the colonial time, all comfortably fronting southward. 

* From Letters of James Russell Lowell. Copyright, 1893, by Harper & 
Brothers. 



284 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 

If it were early June, the rows of horse-chestnuts along the 
fronts of these houses showed, through every crevice of their 
dark heap of foliage, and the end of every drooping limb, a cone 
of pearly flowers, while the hill behind was white or rosy with 
the crowding blooms of various fruit-trees. 11 

At the end of the New Road toward Cambridge stood 
a line of six willows which Lowell mentions in his 
Indian Summer Reverie and also in Under the Willows. 

. . . IVe seen those unshorn few, 
The six old willows at the causey's end 

(Such trees Paul Potter never dreamed nor drew), 
Through this dry mist their checkering shadows send, 
Striped, here and there, with many a long-drawn thread, 
Where streamed through leafy chinks the trembling red, 
Past which, in one bright trail, the hangbird\s flashes blend. 

Indian Summer Reverie. 

This willow is as old to me as life ; 
And under it full often have I stretched 
Feeling the warm earth like a thing ali 
And gathering virtue in at every pore 
Till it possessed me wholly, and thou tsed, 

Or was transfused in something to w! , night 

Is coarse and dull of sense. Myself ^ t. 

Gone from me like an ache, and what km I 

Became a part of the universal joy. IJlfe - 

My soul went forth, and, mingling wi. se, 

Danced in the leaves ; or, floating in " 
Saw its white double in the stream bt hem agai. 
Or else, sublimed to purer ecstasy, eculiar ant 
Dilated in the broad blue over all. inter my vi 

I was the wind that dappled the lush ee one long c 
The tide that crept with coo> t and Cambridge 

The thin-winged swallow sk« and silent with 

The life that gladdened eve id one after another 

'it off from me piece by 



TO THE DANDELION 285 

The boy had a very free and happy outdoor life in 
this country home. He keenly enjoyed such a life, 
caring little for school. The ample grounds, covering 
many acres, with their grassy lawns, orchards and 
groves, afforded him many opportunities to study nature. 
That he became an interested and a close observer of 
all her moods and manifestations is shown in many of 
his writings. Here the dear dandelion of his boyhood 
grew, and here he heard the robin's song. 

Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, 
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, 

First pledge of blithesome May, 
Which children pluck, and, full of pride uphold, 

High-hearted buccaneers, o"er joyed that they 
An Eldorado in the grass have found, 

Which not the rich earth's ample round 
May match in wealth, thou art more dear to me 
Th° \11 the prouder summer-blooms may be. 

Gr ch as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow 

Thr, he primeval hush of Indian seas, 

wrinkled the lean brow 
Of a 5 ' rob the lover's heart of ease ; 

Spring's largess, which she scatters now 
To 3 nc 1 poor alike, with lavish hand. 
oircL v n mos t hearts never understand 
t at God's value, but pass by 
red wealth with unrewarded eye. 



Jlc of New 

Charles sL 

idows, dark 

ass as with a 



tood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee ; 



upon the Old ^ back the robin,s son & 

houses of the co J ' e dark old tree 

clearly all day long, 

* From Letters of J J. 

t> « nldish piety, 

Brothers. L J ' 



286 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 

Listened as if I heard an angel sing 

With news from heaven, which he could bring 
Fresh every day to my untainted ears 
When birds and flowers and I were happy peers. 

How like a prodigal doth nature seem, 
When thou, for all thy gold, so common art! 

Thou teaches me to deem 
More sacredly of every human heart, 

Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam 
Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show, 
Did we but pay the love we owe, 
And with a child's undoubting wisdom look 
On all these living pages of God's book. 

To the Dandelion. 

In My G-arden Acquaintances the poet invites one to 
wander in his little kingdom. In the essay, he mentions 
forty species of birds that nested within the grounds of 
his home, whose habits he had lovingly watched from 
his boyhood. He says, " All my birds look upon me as 
though I were a tenant at will, and they, landlords. 
There is something inexpressibly dear to me in these 
old friendships of a lifetime." 

How he valued in after years the lessons taught him 
in his close study of nature is shown in a letter he 
wrote to his nephew, Charles R. Lowell. 

"Let me counsel you to make use of all your visits to the 
country as opportunities for an education which is of great im- 
portance, which town-bred boys are commonly lacking in, and 
which can never be so cheaply acquired as in boyhood. Remem- 
ber that a man is valuable in our day for what lie knows, and 
that his company will always be desired by others in exact pro- 
portion to the amount of intelligence and instruction he brings 
with him. I assure you that one of the earliest pieces of definite 



STUDY OF NATURE 287 

knowledge we acquire after we have become men is this — that 
our company will be desired no longer than we honestly pay our 
proper share in the general reckoning of mutual entertainment. 
A man who knows more than another knows incalculably more, 
be sure of that, and a person with eyes in his head cannot look 
even into a pigsty without learning something that will be use- 
ful to him at one time or another. Not that we should educate 
ourselves for the mere selfish sake of that advantage of superi- 
ority which it will give us. But knowledge is power in this 
noblest sense that it enables us to benefit others and to pay our 
way honorably in life by being of use. 

"Now, when you are at school in Boston you are furnishing 
your brain with what can be obtained from books. Yon are 
training and enriching your intellect. While you are in the 
country you should remember that you are in the great school 
of the senses. Train your eyes and ears. Learn to know all 
the trees by their bark and leaves, by their general shaj3e and 
manner of growth. Sometimes you can be able to say positively 
what a tree is not by simply examining the lichens on the bark, 
for you will find that particular varieties of lichens love particu- 
lar trees. Learn also to know all the birds by sight, by their 
notes, by their manner of flying ; all the animals by their gen- 
eral appearance and gait or the localities they frequent. 

" You would be ashamed not to know the name and use of 
every piece of furniture in the house, and we ought to be as 
familiar with every object in the world — which is only a larger 
kind of house. You recollect the pretty story of Pizarro and 
the Peruvian Inca ; how the Inca asked one of the Spaniards 
to write the word Bio (God) upon his thumbnail, and then, 
showing it to the rest, found only Pizarro unable to read it. 
AY ell, you will find as you grow older that this same name- of 
God is written all over the world in little phenomena that occur 
under onr eyes every moment, and I confess that I feel very 
much inclined to hang my head with Pizarro when I cannot 
translate these hieroglyphics into my own vernacular.' 1 * 

* From Letters of James Russell Lowell. Copyright, 1893, by Harper & 
Brothers. 



288 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 

Lowell became an earnest student and lover of books 
as he grew older, but they were the books of his own 
choosing rather than those which were required to be 
studied at school and college. As a little fellow, he 
attended a "dame's" school in Cambridge. When 
he was about eight years old, he became a day scholar 
at the boarding school of Mr. William Wells, near Elm- 
wood. In this school he was well grounded in Latin. 

Lowell mentions his childish experiences in the fol- 
lowing poem which is published in his Biglow Papers : 

" Propped on the marsh, a dwelling now, T see 
The humble schoolhouse of my A, B, C, 
Where well-drilled urchins, each behind his tire, 
Waited in ranks the wished command to fire, 
Then all together, when the signal came, 
Discharged their a-b abs against the dame. 
Daughter of Danaus, who could daily i^our 
In treacherous pipkins her Pierian store, 
She,' mid the volleyed learning firm and calm, 
Patted the furloughed ferrule on her palm, 
And, to our wonder, could divine at once 
Who flashed the pan, and who was downright dunce. 



" Ah, dear old times ! there once it was my hap, 
Perched on a stool, to wear the long-eared cap 
From books degraded, there I sat at ease, 
A drone, the envy of compulsory bees; 
Rewards of merit, too, full many a time, 
Each with its woodcut and its moral rhyme, 
And pierced half-dollars hung on ribbons gay 
About my neck (to be restored next day) 
I carried home, rewards as shining then 
As those that deck the lifelong pains of men, 



CHILDISH EXPERIENCES 289 

More solid than the redemanded praise 
With which the world beribbons later days. 

Ah, dear old times ! how brightly ye return ! 
How, rubbed afresh, your phosphor traces burn ! 
The ramble schoolward through dew sparkling meads, 
The willow-wands turned Cinderella steeds, 

The dinner carried in the small tin pail, 

Shared with some dog, whose most beseeching tail 

And dripping tongue and eager ears belied 

The assumed indifference of canine pride ; 

The caper homeward, shortened if the cart 

Of neighbor Pomeroy, trundling from the mart, 

O'ertook me, — then, translated to the seat 

I praised the steed, how stanch he was and fleet, 

While the bluff farmer, with superior grin, 

Explained where horses should be thick, where thin, 

And warned me (joke he always had in store) 

To shun a beast that four white stockings wore. 

What a fine natural courtesy was his ! 

His nod was pleasure, and his full bow bliss ; 

How did his well-thumbed hat, with ardor rapt, 

Its curve decorous to each rank adapt ! 

How did it graduate with a courtly ease 

The whole long scale of social differences, 

Yet so gave each his measure running o 1 er, 

None thought his own was less, his neighbor's more ; 

The squire was flattered, and the pauper knew 

Old times acknowledged 'neath the threadbare blue ! 

Dropped at the corner of the embowered lane, 

Wliistling I wade the knee-deep leaves again, 

While eager Argus, who has missed all day 

The sharer of his condescending play, 

Comes leaping onward with a bark elate 

And boisterous tail to greet me at the gate ; 

That I was true in absence to our love 

Let the thick dogVears in my primer prove." 



290 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 

As before mentioned, Lowell's father was a clergy- 
man, and he frequently would exchange Sunday ser- 
vices with other clergymen whose charges were in 
neighboring towns or villages. On these trips, which 
were often a day's journey from home, he would take 
his son James. In this way the boy had many oppor- 
tunities to become well acquainted with the New Eng- 
land people, their manners and customs, and their 
peculiarities of speech. That he was a close observer 
of the Yankee of that period is shown in some of his 
writings, especially in The Bigloiv Papers and Fitz 
Adams Story. All the early influences in Lowell's 
life are felt in his works. 

Quite a number of Lowell's letters to his friends have 
been published. They are very interesting and give 
one a closer acquaintance with the real man. The fol- 
lowing letters were written when he was a little boy : 

Jan. 25, 1827. 
My dear brother The dog and the colt went down today with 
our boy for me and the eolt went before and then the horse 
and slay and dog — I went to a party and I danced a great deal 
and was very happy — I read french stories — The colt plays 
very much — and follows the horse when it is out. 
Your affectionate brother 

James R. Lowell. 
I forgot to tell you that sister mary has not given me any 
present but I have got three books.* 

Nov. 2, 1828. 
My Dear Brother, — I am now going to tell you melancholy 
news. I have got the ague together with a gumbile. I presume 
you know that September has got a lame leg, but he grows bet- 

* From Letters of James Russell LoAvell. Copyright, 1893, by Harper & 
Brothers. 



CLASS POEM 291 

ter every day and now is very well but still limps a little. We 
have a new scholar from round hill. his name is Hooper and 
we expect another named Penn who I believe also comes from 
there. The boys are all very well except Nemaise, who has got 
another piece of glass in his leg and is waiting for the doctor to 
take it out, and Samuel Storrow is also sick. I am going to 
have a new suit of blue broadcloth clothes to wear every day and 
to play in. Mother tells me I may have any sort of buttons I 
choose. I have not done anything to the hut but if you wish 
I will. I am now very happy; but I should be more so if you 
were there. I hope you will answer my letter if you do not I 
shall write you no more letters, when you write my letters you 
must direct them all to me and not write half to mother as you 
generally do. Mother has given me the three volumes of the 
tales of a grandfather. 

farewell 

Yours truly 

James R. Lowell. 
You must excuse me for making so many mistakes. You 
must keep what I have told you about my new clothes a secret 
if you don't I shall not divulge any more secrets to you. I have 
got quite a library. The Master has not taken his rattan out 
since the vacation. Your little kitten is as well and playful as 
ever and I hope you are to for I am sure I love yon as well as 
ever. Why is grass like a mouse who can't guess that he he he 
ho ho ho ha ha ha hum hum hum.* 

In 1834, when Lowell was about fifteen years old, 
he entered Harvard College. As many of the studies 
required by the college were those that did not interest 
him, his work as a student . became very irksome. He 
was graduated, however, receiving his bachelor degree in 
1838. His first printed poem was his " Class Poem." 
It was printed in pamphlet form for his classmates, and 
dedicated to them in the following original manner : 

* From Letters of James Russell Lowell. Copyrighted, 1893, by Harper & 
Brothers. 



292 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 

" To the class of 1838, some of whom he loves, none of 
whom he hates, this ' poem ' is dedicated by their classmate. 1 ' 

Lowell had such a keen appreciation of his ability to 
become a writer and a poet, that it was most difficult 
for him to decide upon a profession. The ministry was 
first considered but dismissed because he felt that no 
man should be a minister unless he had money other 
than his salary to support him. " For," he wrote, " the 
minister of God should not be thinking of his own and 
children's bread when dispensing the bread of life." 
The study of law received his attention, but not always 
an earnest nor continuous attention, for all the while he 
felt within himself the spirit of poesy craving for ex- 
pression. However, in the spring of 1839, he entered 
the Dane Law School. He finished his studies at the 
Harvard Law School the following year, receiving the 
degree of Bachelor of Laivs. 

Lowell had no desire to practice law ; in fact, he had a 
decided dislike for it, as the following lines plainly show: 

" They tell me I must study law. 

They say that I have dreamed, and dreamed too long ; 

That I must rouse and seek for fame and gold ; 
That I must scorn this idle gift of song, 

And mingle with the vain and proud and cold. 
Is, then, this petty strife 
The end and aim of life, 
All that is worth the living for below ? 
God ! then call me hence, for I would gladly go ! " * 

Owing, however, to the fact that his father had lost 
the greater part of his personal property, and to Lowell's 

* Letters of James Russell Lowell. Copyright, 1893, by Harper & Bros. 



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294 JAMES KUSSELL LOWELL 

desire to many Miss Maria White, to whom he had be- 
come engaged, the practice of laiv seemed to be a neces- 
sity as a means of earning his livelihood. Bnt after 
giving the matter some attention, he at last dismissed it 
entirely, and devoted his efforts wholly to literature. 

Lowell was a contributor of poems to several periodi- 
cals for a year or two, under his own name and the 
assumed name of Hugh Percival. These poems were 
collected and published in 1841 as his first volume of 
poems. It was called A Years Life. They are now 
published in the volume of Earlier Poems. He also 
started a literary magazine, The Pioneer, but only three 
numbers of it were published. 

It was wholly the lack of business ability that caused 
The Pioneer to fail, for the magazine had as its contribu- 
tors such writers as Hawthorne, Whittier and Poe. In 
it appeared Hawthorne's Hall of Phantasy and Poe's 
Lenore. In one of the numbers was Lowell's Song 
Writing, an excellent essay upon the value and influence 
of that form of poetry called songs. In the same num- 
ber, Lowell took his stand with the anti-slavery party, 
and wrote an almost prophetic criticism upon the future 
influence of the work and writings of Garrison and 
Whittier. 

In the winter of 1843, Lowell published his second 
volume of Poems. These indicated the growth of his 
powers, and plainly showed that he was wise in de- 
ciding to devote his life to literature and not to law. 

Although Lowell's income from his writings was 
small and uncertain, yet it seemed sufficient to permit 
his marrying. In December, 1844, he was married to 



THE CHANGELING 295 

Miss White. As Mrs. Lowell was rather frail, they 
spent the winter in Philadelphia, the climate there being 
milder than in Cambridge. They returned to Elmwood 
in the following June. The happiness of Lowell's home 
life was greatly increased by the birth of his daughter, 
Blanche, in December, 1845. The little one lingered 
with them hardly more than a year. The following 
beautiful poem shows how dearly her father loved her. 

I had a little daughter, 

And she was given to me 
To lead me gently backward 

To the Heavenly Father's knee. 
That I, by the force of nature, 

Might in some dim wise divine 
The depth of his infinite patience 

To this wayward soul of mine. 

She had been with us scarce a twelvemonth, 

And it hardly seemed a day, 
When a troop of wandering angels 

Stole my little daughter away ; 
Or perhaps those heavenly Zingari 

But loosed the hampering strings, 
And when they had opened her cage-door, 

My little bird used her wings. 

But they left in her stead a changeling, 

A little angel child, 
That seems like her bud in full blossom, 

And smiles as she never smiled ; 
When I wake in the morning, I see it 

Where she always used to lie, 
And I feel as weak as a violet 

Alone 'neath the awful sky. 



296 JAMES EUSSELL LOWELL 

This child is not mine as the first was, 

I cannot sing it to rest, 
I cannot lift it up fatherly 

And bliss it upon my breast : 
Yet it lies in my little one's cradle 

And sits in my little one's chair, 
And the light of the heaven she's gone to 

Transfigures its golden hair. 

The Changeling. 

In The First Snow-Fall, his thought is of this little 
daughter when he refers to "a mound in sweet Auburn." 

THE FIRST SNOW-FALL 

The snow had begun in the gloaming, 

And busily all the night 
Had been heaping field and highway 

With a silence deep and white. 

Every pine and fir and hemlock 

W r ore ermine too dear for an earl, 
And the poorest twig on the. elm-tree 

AVas ridged inch deep with j)earl. 

From sheds new-roofed with Carrara 

Came Chanticleer's muffled crow, 
The stiff rails softened to swan's-down, 

And still fluttered down the snow. 

I stood and watched by the window 

The noiseless work of the sky, 
And the sudden flurries of snow-birds, 

Like brown leaves whirling by. 

I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn 

Where a little headstone stood ; 
How the flakes were folding it gently, 

As did robins the babes in the wood. 



THE FIRST SNOW-FALL 297 

Up spoke our own little Mabel , 

Saying, ' ' Father, who makes it snow ? " 

And I told of the good All-father 
Who cares for us here below. 

Again I looked at the snow-fall, 

And I thought of the leaden sky 
That arched o'er our first great sorrow, 

When that mound was heaped so high. 

I remembered the gradual patience 
That fell from that cloud like snow, 

Flake by flake, healing and hiding 
The scar that renewed our woe. 

And again to the child I whispered, 

" The snow- that husheth all, 
Darling, the merciful Father 

Alone can make it fall ! " 

Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her; 

And she, kissing back, could not know 
That my kiss was given to her sister, 

Folded close under deepening snow. 

Lowell had four children, three daughters and a son. 
Only one child lived, his daughter Mabel. He dearly 
loved his little ones and their death was a great sorrow 
to him. Those who visited him at that time, remember 
the pairs of baby shoes that hung over a picture frame 
in his study. From the window, he could see Mount 
Auburn, the resting place of the little feet. Beside 
The Changeling and The First Snow-Fail, She Came and 
Went is another poem that expresses, hut in part, his 
fatherly love. 



298 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 

SHE CAME AND WENT 

As a twig trembles, which a bird 

Lights on to sing, then leaves unbent, 

So is my memory thrilled and stirred ; — 
I only know she came and went. 

As clasps some lake, by gusts unriven, 
The blue dome's measureless content, 

So my soul held that moment's heaven ; — 
I only know she came and went. 

As, at one bound, our swift spring heaps 
The orchards full of bloom and scent, 

S 3 clove her May my wintry sleeps ; — 
I only know she came and went. 

An angel stood and met my gaze, 

Through the long doorway of my tent ; 

The tent is struck, the vision stays ; — 
I only know she came and went. 

Oh, when the room grows slowly dim, 

And life's last oil is nearly spent, 
One gush of light these eyes will brim, 

Only to think she came and went. 

The loss of their children told greatly upon Mrs. 
Lowell's health, which had always been delicate, and 
their trip to Europe, in 1851, was undertaken with the 
hope that it might benefit her. The death of their 
youngest child, their baby son, Walter, who was buried 
in Rome, was a grief from which Mrs. Lowell never 
recovered. They returned from Europe the following 
autumn, and Mrs. Lowell died at Elmwood in the au- 
tumn of 1853. On the day of her death, a child was 
born to Longfellow. His Two Angels, which Longfel- 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 299 

low sent to Lowell, is a most beautiful expression of 
sympathy for his friend's sorrow. 

Two angels, one of Life and one of Death, 

Passed o'er our village as the morning broke ; 

The dawn was on their faces, and beneath 

The somber houses hearsed with plumes of smoke. 

Their attitude and aspect were the same, 

Alike their features and their robes of white ; 

But one was crowned with amaranth, as with flame, 
And one with asphodels, like flakes of flight. 

'Twas at thy door, O friend ! and not at mine, 
The angel with the amaranthine wreath, 

Pausing, descended, and with voice divine, 

Whispered a word that had a sound like Death. 

Then fell upon the house a sudden gloom, 
A shadow on those features fair and thin ; 

And softly, from that hushed and darkened room, 
Two angels issued, Where but one went in. 

Two Angels. 

In the summer of 1846, the Mexican war was in 
progress, and in June of that year Lowell's first poem 
of the first series of The Biglow Papers, in which he 
holds up to scorn the efforts to raise volunteers in 
Boston, appeared in The Boston Courier. 

The next important poem after the Bigloiv Papers 
was The Vision of Sir Launfal. It was published in 
1848. The poem was written in forty-eight hours, 
during which time the poet scarcely ate or slept. 
Throughout it seems inspired. The pictures of sum- 
mer and of winter, which form the introductions to the 



800 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 

first and second parts, are exquisitely beautiful. It is 
a landscape poem, and its popularity is due more to its 
presentation of nature than to its legend. This alle- 
gory shows the deeply religious element in Lowell's 
nature and his sincere love for humanity. 

Shortly after Sir Launfal, appeared The Present 
Crisis, the most eloquent and patriotic of all his 
poems. 

A Fable for Critics 

" Set forth in October, the 31st day, 
In the year '48, G. P. Putnam, Broadway, 1 ' 

is a keen, satirical and humorous estimate of the writers 
of that period. It is, on the whole, surprisingly just. 
The poem is unequaled by anything of the same nature, 
in the English language. The poet in his prefatory 
note says, 

" This jeu cVcsprit was extemporized, I may fairly say, so 
rapidly was it written, purely for my own amusement and with 
no thought of publication. I sent daily instalments of it to a 
friend in New York, the late Charles F. Brio-o-s. He ur^ed me 
to let it be printed, and I at last consented to its anonymous pub- 
lication. The secret was kept till after several persons had laid 
claim to its authorship. 1 ' 

Beaver Brook, a few miles from Elmwood, was a 
favorite haunt of the poet. He has made the beauties 
of the place familiar to all in his exquisite poem, Beaver 
Brook. The mill is no longer there, but the Waverly 
Oaks, seven to eight in number, still stand. To the 
Dandelio?i and The Birch Tree are two other poems that 
are beautifully descriptive. 



PROFESSOR IN HARVARD COLLEGE 301 

In the winter of 1855, Lowell was appointed to the 
professorship of " French and Spanish languages and 
literatures, and belles-lettres " in Harvard College. He 
accepted the position on the condition that he be per- 
mitted to spend a year in Europe in preparatory study. 
During the summer of the next year, he returned from 
Europe ; in the autumn, he began his duties as pro- 
fessor. 

Although Lowell was well fitted by education and 
by a kindly, sympathetic nature to be a teacher, still 
the performance of his duties was very irksome. With- 
out doubt, his work as professor interfered with his 
literary efforts, and even seemed at times to crush all 
poetic expression. After he had been teaching about 
ten years, he writes, " I have been overhauling my old 
manuscripts, and hope to finish some beginnings which 
have stood still ever since I was benumbed by sitting 
down in the professor's chair." 

In another letter, he writes, " I begin my annual dis- 
satisfaction of lecturing next Wednesday. I cannot 
get used to it. All my nightmares are of lecturing." 

In 1874, when he was contemplating the giving up 
of his professorship, he wrote, in quite a different spirit, 
the following : 

"I was never good for much as a professor — once a week, 
perhaps, at the best, when I could manage to get into some con- 
ceit of myself, and so could put a little of \\\j go into the boys. 
The rest of the time my desk was as good as I. And then, on 
the other hand, my being a professor wasn't good forme — it 
damped my gunpowder, as it were, and my mind, when it took 
fire at all (which wasn't often), drawled off in an unwilling fuse 



302 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 

instead of leaping to meet the first spark. Since I have dis- 
charged my soul of it and see the callous on my ankle where the 
ball and chain used to be, subsiding gradually to smooth and 
natural skin, I feel like dancing round the table as I used when 
I was twenty, to let off the animal spirits." * 

In the summer of 1857, Lowell was married to Miss 
Frances Dunlap. In the autumn of the same year, he 
became the editor of The Atlantic Monthly, which office 
he held for nearly four years. Shortly after giving up 
that work, he became the joint editor of The North 
American Review, retaining the position for ten years. 

Lowell is often spoken of as the poet-statesman, and 
he well deserves the name, for few poets have ever ren- 
dered such service to their country as he did to his. 
While in Philadelphia during the winter of 1844-45, 
Lowell became a contributor to The Pennsylvania Free- 
man. He also became a contributor to The Anti-Slavery 
Standard, published in New York, which was the organ 
of the Anti-Slavery Society. The contributions to these 
papers, his writings in both prose and poetry, show the 
keen interest Lowell took in the grave and exciting 
events of that period, his intense patriotism and his 
hatred of slavery. The following, quoted from a letter 
to a friend, expresses his sentiments on the subject of 
slavery in no uncertain terms : 

" The horror of slavery can only be appreciated by one who 
has felt it himself, or who has imagination enough to put himself 
in the place of the slave, and fancy himself not only virtually 
imprisoned, but forced to toil, and all this for no crime and no 
reason except that it would be inconvenient to free them. What 
if the curse of slavery were entailed upon them by their ances- 

* Letters of James Russell Lowell. Copyright, 1893, by Harper & Bros. 



THE BIGLUW PAPERS 303 

tors, does this in the least affect the clear question of right and 
wrong? If this be so, then no barbarian can ever be reformed. 
-But, thank God, this is not so. This is the only excuse which 
a pandering conscience, a terrified love of gain, invent for the 
slaveholders, and in which we Northern freemen sustain and en- 
courage (hem. Are the slaves to be forever slaves because our 
ancestors committed a horrible crime and wrong in making them 
so ? Only think for a moment on the miserable and outrageous 
lie and fallacy here. 11 * 

The Present Crisis, printed in 1848, is replete with 
his patriotism and his hatred of oppression. The first 
series of T lie Bigloiv Papers (published in 1848) relates 
to the Mexican war. Lowell regarded the war as a 
national crime committed in behalf of slavery. He en- 
deavored to express the feelings of the New Englanders, 
especially the people of Massachusetts, upon the sub- 
ject. The second series, which appeared about twenty 
years later (1867), refers to the exciting events of the 
Civil War. He had thrown himself heart and soul into 
the cause of abolition, and the The Biglow Papers were 
the medium through which he expressed his bitter 
hatred of slavery. Beneath his keen satires, his severe 
censure of political wrong doing, there flows a stream 
of gentle humor and human sympathy. The papers are 
an excellent comment on the exciting times from the 
beginning of the Mexican War to the Civil War. 
The keen wit and humor displayed placed Lowell in 
the front rank of humorists. During the Rebellion, 
Lowell's writings were among the most powerful and 
effective expressions of the North. The Commemoration 

* From Letters of James Russell Lowell. Copyright, 1893, by Harper & 
Brothers. 



304 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 

Ode was recited in Memorial Hall at the Harvard com- 
memoration, July 21, 18(35, in honor of the ninety-three 
alumni who fell in the Civil War, among whom were 
five of the poet's kindred. It contains a noble tribute 
to President Lincoln, and is full of elevated thought, 
great beauty and power. Beside the above, The Washers 
of the Shroud is one of the strongest war poems. 

The volume of poems containing Under the Willows 
appeared in 1869. In the preface, the author states 
that no collections of his poems had been made since 
1848 and that some of them are of still earlier date. 
Under the Willows is descriptive of the many outdoor 
attractions that had delighted Lowell from his boyhood. 
The willows themselves had always had a peculiar 
charm for the poet. Not only did he love the willows 
dearly, but he taught others to love them so well that a 
resident of Cambridge changed the plan of her house to 
avoid cutting down one of them. 

In Lowell's long poem, The Cathedral, is a full ex- 
pression of his religious faith. It is not only in this 
poem that we find an expression of his love for God 
and man, but it is shown in many of his shorter poems, 
especially in The Search, Grodminster Chimes and The 
Foot Path, 

As a writer of prose, Lowell also ranks among the 
first of our American authors. His first prose work, 
Conversation on Some of the Older Poets, was published 
in 1845. In 1854 appeared the Life of Keats. 

Fireside Travels was published in 1864. This is a 
book of charming essays which had appeared in the 
magazines of the day. In this collection is Cambridge 
Thirty Years Ago. 



306 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 

My Study Windows, which was published in 1870, 
contains some of Lowell's best prose writings. 

In the summer of 1872, Lowell went to Europe, on 
his third visit, remaining abroad two years. The de- 
gree of Doctor of Civil Law was conferred upon him 
by Oxford in June 1873, and the degree of Doctor of 
Laws by Cambridge. 

Lowell was sent by our government as Minister to 
Spain in 1877. He was afterward transferred to Eng- 
land (1880). He made many friends while in England, 
charming the English people by his courtliness and his 
brilliant talents. He delivered a number of speeches, 
which are published among his political and literary 
addresses. Lowell returned to the United States in 
1885, and lived a retired life with his only daughter, 
at South boro', Mass. He was not afterward engaged in 
public life, and was prevented by failing health from 
doing much literary work. He died at Elmwood, 
August 12, 1891. 

As a writer, Lowell is one of our best poets, essayists, 
critics and lecturers. His writings are humorous, witty, 
pathetic and kindly satirical. As an American, he was 
a true patriot, eager for his country's good ; an ardent 
abolitionist ; and an excellent Minister to the Court of 
St. James. England has honored his memory by erect- 
ing a memorial window to him in Westminster Abbey. 



NDEX 



IXDEX 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 



PAGE 

Admitted to the bar ... 23 
Ages, The, Selection from 29 

Ancestors 11, 12 

Baylies, Hon. William, 

Studies law with ... 23 
Boyhood, Description of 13, 14 
Boys of My Boyhood, The, 

Selection from .... 13 
Bryant, 

Homestead, Description of 6 
Peter (Dr.), 

Description of . . 12, 13 
Influence of, upon Wil- 
liam Cullen . . 14, 15 
Marriage of ... . 12 
Peter (Mrs.), 

Description of . . . 12 
Influence of, upon Wil- 
liam Cullen ... 14 

Philip (Dr.) 11 

Stephen 11 

William Cullen, 

Birth of 5 

Birthplace of . . . 5 

Death of 45 

Description of . . . 16 
Edgar Allan Poe's 38, 39 
Marriage of . . . . 29 
William Cullen (Mrs.), 

Death of 39 

Description of . . .29 

Poems to 39 

Cedarmere 38 

Central Park, New York City, 

Influence in establishing 36 
College career . . . . 16, 18 



l'AGE 

Courtship of Miles Standish, 

The 12 

Cummington, 

Life at 10 

Natural surroundings of 8 

Curtis, George William, 
Thanatopsis character- 
ized by 19 

Death of William Cullen 

Bryant .45 

Death of the Flowers, The, 

Selection fiom .... 32 

Death of Lincoln, The, 

Publication of ... . 34- 
Selection from .... 34 

Death of Slavery, The . . 'So 

Editor, 

Career as .... 31-33 
Eveniiig Post .... 31 
New lark Review and 
Atheneum 31 

Education, 

College 18 

Early 13-16 

Eightieth Birthday ... 40 

Embargo, The, Account of, 15, 16 

Europe 35 

Fairchild, Prances (Miss). 

Marriage of 29 

Flood of Years .... 45 

Fountain and Other Poems, 

The, Publication of . 36 

Future Life, The, 

Selection from .... 36 

Great Barrington, 

Residence at ... . 25 



309 



310 



INDEX 



Green River, quoted . 20, 28 


2.') 


Poe, Edgar Allan, 




Writing of 


26 


Bryant described by . 


38, 39 


Godwin, Parke, 




Poems, 




Account of writing To a 




Complete volume . . 


. 35 


Waterfowl .... 


23 


Familiar 


. 31 


Hallock, Moses (Rev.) . . 


10 


First volume . . . 


. 30 


Howard, Abiel (Dr ) 


12 


Illustrated edition . . 


. 40 


Howe, Samuel (Judge), 




Later favorites . . . 


. 40 


Studies law with . . . 


23 


Of nature .... 


. 41 


Hymn to Death, 




Phi Beta Kappa Society 




Publication of ... . 


30 


Harvard .... 


.' 29 


Selection from .... 


15 


To Mrs. Bryant . . 


. 39 


Iliad, 




Poet, The, Selection from 


5 


Publication of ... . 


35 


Poetry, First efforts in . 


15, 10 


Translation of ... . 


35 


Political principles . . 


. 33 


Inscription for the Entrance 




Prose works, Quality of 


. 35 


to a Wood, 




Publication, First . . 


. 15 


Publication of ... . 


22 


Reputation abroad . . 


. 35 


Selection from ... 22 


23 


Rivulet, The, 




Writing of 


22 


Selection from . . . 


10, 11 


Irving, Washington . 


35 


Robert of Lincoln, quoted 


42-44 


June, 




Roslyn, N. Y., Home at 


. 38 


Publication of ... . 


31 


Shaw, Abigail .... 


. 11 


Selection from .... 


46 


Slavery, Attitude toward 


. 33 


Law, 




Snell, 




Practice of 


25 


Ebenezer 


. 12 


Study of 


23 


Sarah, 




Letters from the East . . 


35 


Ancestors of . . . 


. 12 


Letters of a 'Traveler . . . 


35 


Marriage of . . . 


. 12 


Life that Is, The, Writing of 


33 


Thomas (Rev.) . . . 


. 12 


Lines on Revisiting the 




Solitude, Love of . . . 


. 25 


Country, 




Summer Wind . . 


. 25 


Selection from .... 


8 


Quoted 


41, 42 


Little People of the Snow, 




Thanatopsis, 




The, Selection from 40 


,41 


G. W. Curtis 1 s opinion o: 


' 19 


May Sun Sheds an Amber 




Quoted 


19-22 


Light, The, 




Publication of . . . 


. 19 


Selection from .... 


39 


Selection from . . . 


3 


New York City, 




Writing of . 


. 18 


First visit to .... 


31 


Third of November, The, 




New York Review and Athe- 




Publication of . . . 


. 39 


neum, Co-editor of . . . 


31 


Thirty Poems, published 


. 39 


Odyssey, 




To a Waterfowl, 




Publication of ... . 


35 


Account of writing . 


. 23 


Translation of ... . 


35 


Parke Godwin on . . 


. 23 


Old Man's Funeral, The, 




Quoted 


. 24 


Selection from .... 


5 


Publication of . . . 


. 23 


Our Country's Call, 




Translations .... 


. 35 


Selection from ... 33 


34 


Travels 


. 35 



INDEX 



311 



' ' Truth crushed to earth 

shall rise again" . 33, 40 

White Footed Beer and Other 

Poems, The, published . 38 



PAGE 

18 



Williams College . . . 
Wordsworth, 

Influence of, upon Bryant 35 



POEMS (ENTIRE) 



Green River . . 
Robert of Lincoln 
Summer Wind 



20 
42 

41 



Thanatopsis 
To a Waterfowl 



19 
24 



EXCERPTS 



Ages, The ...... 29 

Death of Lincoln, The . . 34 

Death of the Elowers, The . 32 

Future Life, The .... 3(3 

Hymn to Death .... 15 

Inscription for the En- 
trance to a Wood . . 22 

June 45 

Lines on Revisiting the 

Country ..... 8 



Little People of the Snow, 

The 40 

May Sun Sheds an Amber 

Light, The .... 39 

Old Man's Funeral, The . 4 

Poet, The ....... 4 

Rivulet, The 10 

Thanatopsis 3 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 



Ancestors .... 
Atlantic Monthly, The 
Boston, 

Description of . . 

Residence in . . 
Boyhood, Description of 
Brothers . . . . 55, 61, 
Bulkeley, Peter (Rev.) 
Cambridge, Mass., 

Divinity Hall . 

Divinity School 

Harvard College . 

Residence in . . 



52, 53 


College life 


60-62 


. 82 


Concord, Mass., 






Description of . . . 


. 70 


. 52 


Poems about 


. 70 


55, 60 


Manse, The Old, 




55-58 


Description of *. 


. 70 


63, 64 


Mosses from an Old 




. 52 


Manse, written in 


53, 70 




Nature, written in . 


. 70 


. 66 


Residence in . 60, 66 


68,84 


. 65 


New home at, 




. 00 


Description of . 


. 70 


. 66 


Destruction of . . 


. 84 



812 



INDEX 



Concord Hymn, Account of 
Conduct of Life, 

Publication of ... . 
Death of Ralph Waldo 

Emerson 

Dial, The, 

Earlier poems in . . . 

Editor of 

Dirge, Selection from 

Domestic Life 

Domestic life .... 73, 

Each and All 

Education, 

College . . . . . 60- 

Early ...... 

Emerson, 

Edward 

Joseph (Rev.) of Concord 
Joseph (Rev.), pioneer 
minister ...... 

Mary Moody, 

Character of . . . 57, 
Early life of ... . 

Influence of, upon Ralph 

Waldo 

Love of learning of 
Ralph Waldo, 

Birth of 

Birthplace of ... . 
Boyish traits of . . 56, 
Brothers of . 55, 6.1, 03, 
Character of, youthful 
Daughter of ... . 

Death of 

Early life of ... . 
First wife of . . .67, 
Marriage of, 

First 

Second 

William, father of Ralph 
Waldo, 
Ancestors of . , . 52, 
Education of 
Death of ... . 
Description of . 
Marriage of . 
Minister, 

Of First Church of 
Boston . . . 



5-1 



PAGE 

Emerson, William, (continued), 
Minister of town of Harvard 54 
William (Mrs.), 

Character of .... 54 

Struggle with poverty 54, 55 

William, patriot minister 53 

End of working life ... 84 

English Traits ..... 74 

Essayist 77 

Essays, 
American Scholar . . .77 
First volume of . . . . 77 

Nature 77 

Second volume of ... 77 
Europe, 

First trip to 68 

Second trip to .... 77 

Third trip to 84 

Forbearance 51 

Fortus 59 

Furness, W. H 59 

Good- Bye 65 

Publication of .... 78 

Gould, Benjamin Apthorp, 59 

Assistance of, to Emerson 61) 

Harvard College, Career at 60-62 

Haskins, Ruth 54 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel . 53, 85 
Humble-Bee, The, 

Selection from . . . 74, 79 

Publication of .... 78 

Jackson, Lydia (Miss) . . 68 

Latin School 59 

Lectures, 

Account of .... 74, 76 

In England 77 

Lowell, Charles (Rev.) . . 54 
Manse, The Old, 53, G6, 68, 70, 84 
May-Day and other Poems . 82 
Minister of Second Church 
of Boston, 

Ordained as 66 

Resignation as .... 67 
Ministry, Qualified for . . 06 

Studying for 65 

Miscellanies 78 

Monadnock 70 

Mosses from an Old Manse oS, 70 
Musketaquid 70 



INDEX 



313 



My Garden 


65, 


70 


Representative Men . . 




77 


Selection from . 




71 


Rhodora, The, Publication of 


78 


Nature, published . . 




76 


Second Church of Boston, 






Nature, 






Anti-slavery movement in 


77 


Love of 




65 
65 


Ordained minister of . 
Resigned charge of 
Sermons, 




66 


Poems to 


67 


Newtou 




68 






Nun's Aspiration, The . 




67 


Criticisms of 




67 


"Original poems" . . 


59 


60 


Publication of . 


m, 


67 


Parnassus, 






Slavery, Attitude toward 


77, 


78 


Account of ... . 


82 


84 


Snow-Storm, The . 




78 


Publication of . 




82 


Society and Solitude . 




77 


Peter's Field .... 




64 


South, Trip to the . . 




m 


Poems, 






Teaching 


62 


63 


Earlier, published . . 




78 


Terminus, Publication of 




82 


First 




78 


Threnody 


72 


82 


First volume published 




82 


Selection from . 


72 


73 


Pleasure in writing . 




78 


To Ellen, Selection from 


67 


68 


Second volume published 


82 


Tucker, Ellen (Miss) 




67 


Quality of 




84 






78 






51 

66 


Walden . 




70 


Preaching 


Walden woods . . 
Webster 


71 


Problem, The, 


78 


Publication of . . . 




79 


Woodnotes 


65 


70 


Selection from . . . 


81 


,82 


I J ublication of . . . 




79 


Prose works, 






Selections from 49, 79 


-81 


86 


Quality of ... . 




78 









Forbearance 



POEM (ENTIRE) 



51 



Dirge . 
Humble-Bee, 
My Garden . 
Problem, The 



The 



EXCERPTS 



74 



64 
79 
71 
81 



Threnody 
To Ellen 
Woodnotes 



49, 



72 
67 
79 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 



Anecdotes .... 135, 137 

Al Aaraaf 110 

Allan, Mr. and Mrs., 

Adopt Poe 94 

Death of Mr. Allan . . 116 



Home in England ... 95 
Obtain West Point Ca- 

detship f or l 5 oe . 109, 110 
Return to America . . 98 
Secure Poe's discharge . 109 



su 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Alone, Selection from . . 89 

Annabel Lee, 

Quoted 137-139 

Selection from . . . . 118 

Army, U.S., Enlists in . . 108 

Arnold, Elizabeth ... 93 

Athletics, Account of . 99-101 

Balloon Hoax,, The, publica- 
tion of 129 

Baltimore, 

Last visit to 145 

Residence in .... 112 

Baltimore Saturday Visitor 

113, 116 

Bamaby Rudge .... 125 

Bells, The, 

Account of 141 

Quoted 141-145 

Black Cat, The, 

Publication of ... . 128 
Selection from .... 102 

Broadway Journal, 

Connections with . . . 135 

Burton's Gentleman'' s Maga- 
zine, 
Associate-editor of . . 121 
Termination of editor- 
ship of ... . 123, 124 

Clemm, Maria (Mrs.), 

Description of ... 128 

Opinion of Poe . . . 120 
Poe's home with . . . 116 
Removal of, to Richmond 128 
Virginia, daughter of . . 116 
Betrothal of, to Poe . 117 
Marriage of . . . 118, 119 

Goloseum, 
Quoted .... 114, 116 
Publication of . . . . 113 

ConchologisVs First Text- 
Book, published . . . 121 

Critic 119 

Cryptography 125 

Death of Edgar Allan Poe 145 

Descent into the Maelstrom, 

The 125 

Bream within a Dream, A, 

Selection from . . . . 105 

Early struggles . 113, 114, 116 



Education, 

College .... 105, 107 

Early . . .94, 96-99, 104 

Enlists in U.S. Army . . 108 

Eulalume, Selection from . 145 

Evening Mirror, 

Publication of Ihe Baven 

in 130 

Sub-editor of ... . 130 
Fall of the House of Usher, 

The 121 

Fordham, Home at . . . 137 
Gold Bug, The, Account of 127 
Graham's Magazine, 

Contributor to ... . 125 
Editor of ... . 125, 126 
Severed Connections with 

127, 128 
Haunted Talace, The . . 121 
Quoted .... 122, 123 
Hopkins, C. D. (Mrs.) . . 93 
Kennedy, Mr. . . . 113, 117 
Letters, 

Concerning the use of 

liquor 124 

Concerning his wife's 

death .... 139, 140 
To Mr. Kennedy . . . 113 
To James Russell Lowell 

129, 130 
MS. Found in a Bottle, A . 113 
Murders of the Bue Morgue, ' 

The 125 

Mystery of Marie Boget . . 127 
Narrative of Arthur Gordon 

Pym, The . . . 120, 121 
New York City, 

Visits to . . . 112, 120, 128 
Pcean, A, Selection from . 104 
Penn Magazine . . . . 124 
Philadelphia, Removal to . 121 
Poe, 

David (General) ... 92 
David, 

Actor 93, 94 

Death of 94 

Marriage of ... . 93 

Studied law . . . 92, 93 

David (Mrs.) . . . 93, 94 



INDEX 



315 



Edgar Allan, 






Adoption of . . 




94 


Birth of . . . 




92 


Childhood of 


94, i 


Death of . . . 




145 


Description of . 


100 


-102 


Marriage of . . 


118, 


119 


Edgar Allan (Mrs.), 






Deatli of . . . 




137 


Ill health of . . 




12G 


Rosalie .... 




94 


William Henry Leonard, 


93 


Poems, 






Eirst volume published . 


107 


Second volume publis 


lied 


110 


Third volume published . 


112 


Position in literature 


145, 


140 


Raven, The, 






Account of . . . 




134 


Quoted .... 


130 


-134 


* Publication of . 




130 


Richmond, Va., Residence at 






117, 


118 


Snowdon 1 s Ladies' Magazine 


127 


Southern Literary Messenger, 




Assistant editor 




117 


Contributor to . . 




117 


Editor of . . . . 




119 



Stannard, Mrs. . . . 102-104 
Stoke-Newington, 

Account of life at . 

Return to America from 

Stylus, The 

Sun, The (New York), 

Publications in . . . . 
Tale of the Ragged Moun- 
tains, A 

Tales of the Grotesque and 
Arabesque .... 
Tamerlane, Selections from, 
91, 108 
Tamerlane and Other Poems 

Account of ... . 107 

Publication of ... . 
To Helen, Selection from . 
To My Mother, quoted . . 
University of Virginia, 

Record at . . . 
West Point, 

Cadetship, 
Application for . 
Appointment to . 

Dismissal from 

Life at Ill, 112 

William Wilson, 

Selection from . . . 96-98 



96-98 

98 

127 

129 

129 

123 

109 

108 
107 
103 
140 



105, 107 



109 
110 
112 



POEMS (ENTIRE) 



Annabel Lee . 
Bells, The . . 
Coloseum, The 



137 
141 
114 



Haunted Palace, The . . 122 

Raven, The 130 

To My Mother .... 140 



EXCERPTS 



Alone 89 

Annabel Lee 118 

Dream within a Dream, A 105 

Eulalume 145 



Pamn, A 104 

Tamerlane ... 91, 108, 109 
To Helen 103 



316 



INDEX 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 



Ambitions, Literary . . 170-172 

Ancestors . . . . 151, 152 

Appleton, Frances Elizabeth 181 

Armchair, The famous . . 185 

Ballads and Other Poems, 

Publication of . . . . 181 

Battle of LovelVs Pond, The, 

Account of 1G6 

Quoted 165 

Publication of ... . 105 

Bowdoin College, 

Career in ... 100, 107 
Professor at . . . 172, 178 
Stephen Longfellow, trus- 
tee of 152 

Brunswick, Home at . . 174 

Building of the Ship, The, 

Selection from . . 182, 183 

Cambridge, Residence in . 170 

Carter, Nathaniel H. . . 104 

Childish impressions . 102, 104 

College, 

Degrees 184 

Record at . . . 100, 107 

Courtship of Miles Standish, 

The 183 

Craigie House . . . . . 170 
History of ... . 170-178 
Purchase of 181 

Day is Done, The, 

Selection from .... 151 

Death of Henry Wadsworth 

Longfellow .... 180 

Divina Commedia, 

Translation of . . . . 184 

Education, 

College .... 100, 107 
Early 102, 104 

Essays 173 

Europe, 

First visit to. . . 173, 174 
Second visit to .... 175 
Third visit to ... . 181 
Fourth visit to . . 184, 185 

Evangeline . . . . 181, 182 
J. R. Lowell's opinion of 182 



Fable for Critics, A, 








Selection from . . 




182 


Footsteps of Angels, 






Selection from . 


175, 


17G 


From my Armchair, 






Account of . 




185 


Selection from . . 


185, 


186 


Harvard College, 






Professor at . 


174, 


176 


Resignation as . 




183 


Hawthorne, Nathaniel 


100, 


176 


Hyperion, 






Popularity of . . 




180 


Publication of . 






179 


Selection from . 




178, 


179 


Indian Hunter, The 






167 


Quoted . . . 




108, 


169 


Keramos, Selection from 


158, 


159 


Literary services to Amer- 




ica 


180, 


187 


Longfellow, 






Abigail .... 




152 


Henry Wadsworth, 






Birth of .... 




151 


Birthplace of . . 


151, 


152 


Death of . . . 




186 


Description of . 




166 


Marriage of, 






First. . . . 




174 


Second . 




181 


Henry Wadsworth (M 


*.), 




174, 175, 


181, 


183 


Stephen .... 




152 


William .... 




151 


Zilpah Wadsworth . 


151, 


152 


Lovell's Pond . 




165 


My Lost Youth, quoted 


154 


-158 


Native Writers 




167 


New England Magazine, 


The 


174 


North American Review, 


The 


174 


Orr, Benjamin . . 




172 


Outre Mer, published 




173 


Poems, 






College, published . 




167 


First, published 


165, 


166 


First volume published . 


180 





INDEX 


317 




PAGE 




PAGE 


Poems, 




Spanish Student, The, 




Last volume published . 


180 


Selection from . . . . 


182 


Longer 


181 


To the River Charles, 




Popularity of ... . 


186 


Selection from .... 


179 


Second volume published 


181 


Translation, 




Poems on Slavery .... 


181 


Divina Commedia . . . 


184 


Portland Academy . 


164 


French text-book . . . 


173 


Portland Gazette, The . . 


105 


Ultima Thule, published . 


180 


Potter, Mary Storrer . . 


174 


United States Literary Ga- 




Psalm of Life, The . 180 


181 


zette, The 


107 


Ropewalk, The, quoted 100 


-102 


Village Blacksmith, The, 




Sea-Diver, The .... 


167 


Account of 


185 


Quoted .... 100 


170 


Selection from .... 


180 


Seventy-second birthday . 


185 


Voices of the Night, published 180 


Sketch Book, The .... 


102 


Wadsworth, 




Song of Hiawatha, The 




Henry 


154 


Popularity of ... . 


183 


Zilpali 


151 


Selection from .... 


149 


Wadsworth House, 




Spanish Student, The, 




Description of . . .152 


, 154 


Publication of ... . 


181 







POEMS (ENTIRE) 



Battle of LovelPs Pond. 
Indian Hunter, The . 
My Lost Youth . . 



The 



105 
168 
154 



Ropewalk, The 
Sea-Diver, The 



160 
109 



EXCERPTS 



V 



Building of the Ship, The . 182 

Day is Done, The . . . 151 

Fable for Critics, A : Lowell 182 

Footsteps of Angels . . . 175 

From My Armchair . . . 185 

Keramos 158 



Song of Hiawatha, The 
Spanish Student, The . 
To the River Charles 
Two Angels .... 
Village Blacksmith, The 



149 
182 

179 
299 

185 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 



American Manufacturer, 

Writer for . . . . . 218 

Amesbury, Home at . . . 221 

Ancestors .... 195, 196 

Anecdotes . 200, 205, 200, 216, 

217, 222 



Anti-slavery, 

National party formed . 226 
Persecution of advocates 

223, 224 
Poems ....... 225 

Society of Haverhill . . 219 



318 



INDEX 



Anti-slavery, Work for 
At Eventide, published . . 
Atlantic Monthly, 

Contributor to ... . 

Dinner by publishers of . 
At Sundown, published . . 
At Washington .... 
Barbara Frletchie . . • 
Barefoot Boy, The, 

Selections from 199, 209- 
Battle Autumn of 1862, The 
Boy Captives, The . . . 
Boyhood . . . 209, 211, 
Brown of Ossdwatomie . . 

Publication of ... . 
Burial of Barbour . . . 
Burns, Selection from 212, 
Burns, Robert, 

Influence of 

City of the Plain, The . . 
Coffin, Joshua . . . 207, 
Common Question, The . . 

Crisis, The 

Death of John Greenleaf 

Whittier 

Education, Early . . 206- 
Eln Feste Burg ist Unser 

Gott 

Eternal Goodness, The, 

Publication of ... . 

Selections from . 193, 
Ernie's Departure, The . . 

Expostulation 

Farm life • 

199, 200, 209, 211, 219, 
For Righteousness'' Sake 
Frost Spirit, The .... 
Garrison, William Lloyd, 

Closer association with 
Whittier 

First meeting . . .213- 

Free Press, established by 

National Philanthropist, 
Established by . 

Tribute to Whittier . . 
Greenleaf, Sarah .... 
Haverhill, Selection from 194, 
Haverhill Academy, 

Career at ... . 216, 



221 
234 

231 

234 
234 

226 

227 

211 

227 
199 
212 
229 
281 
213 
213 

212 

218 
211 

217 

226 

236 

209 

227 

233 

233 

214 
225 

220 

227 
218 



220 
215 
214 

218 
230 
196 
195 

218 



200, 



2-2> 



PAGE 

Haverhill Gazette, 

Contributions to . . . 218 

Editor of ... 218, 221 
Hazel Blossoms, published . 234 
Herald, Newburyport . . 213 
Home Ballads, Poems and 

Lyrics 231 

Home circle, Description of 

201-205, 222 
Home Coming of the Bride, 

Selection from . . . 
Hunters of Men . . . 
Hussey, Abigail . 

Ichabod 

In School Days, 

Publication of . . . 

Selection from . . . 
In War Time .... 
Kansas Emigrants, The 
Kenoza Lake, 

Publication of . . . 

Selection from . 
Laus Deo, 

Selection from . 

Writing of 

Lays of my Home and Other 

Poems 

Letter, A 

Literary Recreations . 
Lost Occasion, The, . . 

Publication of . . . 

Lowell, Mass 

Margaret Smith's Journal 
Middlesex Standard . . 
My Namesake, Selection 

from 

My Triumph .... 
New England Legends in 

Prose and Verse 
New England Review, 

Editorship of . 
Resignation of 
Oak Knoll, Danvers 
Old Portraits . . 
Our Master . 
Pcean .... 
Pastoral Letter, The 
Peace Autumn, The 
Peasley, John 



196 
225 
196 
229 

233 

208 
227 
226 

231 
201 

229 

228 

223 

227 
231 
234 
229 
221 
231 
222 

191 
233 

219 



218 
219 
221 
231 
233 
226 
226 
229 
196 



INDEX 



319 



Pennsylvania Freeman, The, 
Connection with . . . 221 
Destruction of . . . . 221 
Pine Tree, The ... . 226 
Poems, Comparative influence 

of 229, 230 

First published . . . 214 
First volume . . . . 219 

Personal 229 

Volume of 1843 . . 223-225 
Political offices .... 219 
Position in literature ., . 

.L93, 194, 236, 237 
Prose Works, Quality of, 230, 231 
Bed Riding-Hood .... 217 
Sabbath Scene, A . . . . 226 
Seventieth birthday . . . 234 
Slavery, Attitude toward 

219-221, 223-226 
Snow-Bound, 
Publication of .... 232 
Selections from 198-205, 232 
Stanzas for the Times . . 225 
Stranger in Lowell, The . 222 
Teaching 218 



Telling the Bees, . 

Publication of . 
Tent on the Beach, 

Publication of . 

Selection from . 
Texas . . . . 



The, 



199 
231 

222 
232 
223 
226 



PAGE 

218 
227 
226 
226 

227 
226 



Thayer, A. W. ... 
Thy Will Be Done .. . 
To a Southern Statesman 
To Faneuil Hall . . . 
To John C. Fremont 
To Massachusetts . 
To My Old School Master, 

Selection from . . 207, 208 
To Oliver Wendell Holmes, 

Selection from .... 235 

Writing of 235 

To William Lloyd Garrison, 

Selection from . . . . 215 
Vaudois Teacher, The . 218, 219 

Watchers, The 237 

Whittier, 

Elizabeth, Description of 222 

John Greenleaf, 

Birth of 194 

Birthplace, .... 194 
Description of . 198-200 



Sale of 

Boyhood of . . 

Death of . . . 

Description of . 

Early influences 

Father, Death of 

Joseph .... 

Thomas .... 

Word for the Hour, A 

Yankee Gipsies . . 



211. 



221 
209 
236 
216 
212 
218 
196 
195 
227 
211 



POEMS (EXCERPTS) 



-Barefoot Boy, The . . . 199 

Burns 212 

Eternal Goodness, The 193, 233 

Haverhill 194 

Home Coming of the Bride 196 

In School Days .... 208 

Kenoza Lake . . . . . 200 

Laus Deo 228 



My Namesake 191 

Snow-Bound 198, 199, 201, 232 
Tent on the Beach, The . 223 
To my Old School Master . 207 
To Oliver Wendell Holmes 235 
To William Lloyd Garri- 
son 215 



320 



INDEX 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 



PAGE 

Agnes 269 

Ancestors .... 246, 247 

Annals of America . . . 246 

Atlantic Monthly, The, 

Contributions to . . . 267 

Effect of 272 

Naming of . . . . . 267 

Autobiography, Selections 

from, . 248, 250-253, 260 

Autocrat of the Breakfast 
Table, The . . . 267, 268 

Biglow, William .... 252 

Biographies 270 

Boston Daily Advertiser . 200 

Boys, The, 

Publication of ... . 273 
Selection from . . . 273, 274 

Chambered Nautilus, The, 
Publication of .... 268 

Quoted 268, 269 

Selection from .... 243 

Childhood 248-252 

Children 265, 266 

Cinders from the Ashes . . 270 

College, 

Degrees 271 

Record at 255 

Collegian, Contributions to 255 

Dane Law School . . . 257 

Dartmouth College, 

Professor of Anatomy in 265 

Death of Oliver Wendell 
Holmes 271 

Dorchester Giant, The, . . 255 
Quoted 255-257 

Dorothy Q., 

Selections from . 247, 248 

Education, 

College 255 

Early 252, 253 

Elsie Venner, published . 270 

Essays 270 

Europe, 

First visit to .... 261 
Second visit to . . . 270, 271 

Evening, By a Tailor . . 255 



PAGE 

Fable for Critics, A, 

Selection from . . 271, 272 
Guardian Angel, The, 

Publication of . . . . 270 
Harvard College, 

Career at 255 

Phi Beta Kappa Society, 

Poetry read before . . 262 
Professorship at, 

Account of . . 266, 267 

Appointment to . . . 266 

Resignation of . . . 270 
Holmes, 
Abiel, (Rev.), Description 

of . .' 246 

Abiel (Mrs.) .... 246 

John 246 

Oliver Wendell, 

Birth of 244 

Birthplace, 

Description of . . 244 

History of . . . . 244 

Property of Harvard 245 

Death of 271 

Marriage of ... . 265 

Oliver Wendell (Mrs), 265, 271 
Oliver Wendell, Jr., 

Announcement of birth, 265 

Inevitable Trial, The . .270 

Iron Gate, The, . ... 272 

Selection from .... 241 

Jackson, 

Amelia Lee (Miss) . . 265 

James (Dr.), 

Studies medicine with . 260 

Last Leaf , The .... 262 

Law, Study of 257 

Lecturer 266 

Medicine, 

Practice of . . . 264, 265 

Professor of Anatomy . 265 
Studies, 

Account of . . . 2C0, 261 

In Paris 261 

Novels 270 

Occasional verses .... 273 



INDEX 



321 



PAGE 

Old gambrel roofed house, 

the, Account of . . 244, 245 

Old Ironsides, 

Publication of ... . 260 

Quoted 258 

Writing of 258 

Our Hundred Days in 

Europe ..... 271 

Pages from an Old Volume 

' of Life 270 

Phillips Academy . . . 253 

Pittsfield, Home at . . . 267 

Poems, 

College 255 

First volume published . 262 

Volume of 1862 ... 269 

Poet at the Breakfast Table, 

The 269 

Poetry . 262 



Position in literature, 

244, 272, 273 

Professor at 

Dartmouth 265 

Harvard .... 266, 267 

Professor at the Breakfast 

Table, The, published 269 

Quincy, Dorothy .... 247 

School-Boy, The, 

Selection from . . . 253-255 
Writing of 253 

Songs in Many Keys . . 269 

Soundings from the Atlantic 270 

Spectre Pig, The ... . 255 

To an Insect, 
Publication of ... . 262 
Quoted 262-264 

Upham, Dorothy Quincy, 

Verses to 248 

Wendell, Sarah .... 246 



A 



POEMS (ENTIRE) 



Chambered Nautilus, The 

Dorchester Giant, The . 

Old Ironsides 258 



Chambered Nautilus, The 
Dorothy Q. . . . . . 

Dorotho Q. (Upham) 



268 


To an Insect 262 


255 


Boys, The 274 


258 




WXCI 
243 


:rpts 

Fable for Critics, A : Lowell 271 


247 


Iron Gate, The .... 241 


248 


School-Boy, The .... 253 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 



Ambitions, Literary . . 292, 294 

Ancestors 280, 281 

Atlantic Monthly, The . . 302 
Anti-slavery party . . . 294 
Anti-Slavery Standard, The 302 



Beaver Brook 



Biglow Papers, The . 
First poem published 
Influence of . . . 
Publication of . . 
Selection from . 



300 Birch Tree, The 



. 290 
. 299 
. 303 
. 303 

288, 289 
. 300 



322 



INDEX 



Boston Courier, The . 
Cambridge . . . 280, 283, 
Cambridge Thirty Years 
Ago, 



AGE 

299 

284 



283, 



295, 
295- 
291, 

292, 



Selection from 
Cathedral, The 
Changeling, The. 

Selection from 
Children . . 
" Class Poem " 
College, 

Degrees . . 

Record . . 
Commemoration Ode, The . 
Conversations on Some of 
the Older Poets . . . 
Dane Law School, Enters . 
Death of James Russell 

Lowell 

Earlier Poems 

Editor of 

Atlantic Monthly, The . 

North American Review . 

Pioneer, The .... 
Education, 

College 

Early 288 

Elmwood, Description of . 
281-283 
Europe, 

Eirst visit to 

Second visit to 

Third visit to 
Fable for Critics, 

Preface to 

Publication of . 

Selection from . 
Fireside Travels . 
First Snow-Fall, The 

Quoted . . 
Fitz Adam's Story 
Foot Path, The . 
Harvard College, 

Record in 

Professor . . . 
Dislike of work as 
Resignation as . 
Harvard Law School 
Hawthorne, Nathaniel 



A, 



296. 



301 



301 
284 
304 

296 

-298 
292 

306 
291 
304 

304 

292 

306 
294 

,302 
302 
294 

291 
289 

295 

298 
301 
306 

300 

300 

277 
304 

297 
290 
304 

291 
301 

302 
302 
292 
294 



PAGE 

Indian Summer Reverie, 

Selection from ... . 284 
Law, 

Practice of 294 

Study of 292 

Letters, 

Concerning his professor- ■ 

ship 301, 302 

Concerning slavery . 302, 303 

Eirst 290, 291 

To Charles R, Lowell, 286, 287 

Life of Keats 304 

Lowell, 

Charles (Rev.) . . . 280, 281 
Charles (Mrs.) .... 281 
Charles R., 
Letter from J. R. Lowell 

to 286, 287 

Erancis Cabot . . . • . 280 
James Russell, 

Birth of 280 

Birthplace of . . 280-283 

Death of 306 

Early influences 281, 282, 
285, 290 
Marriage, 

First 294 

Second 302 

James Russell (Mrs.) 

295, 298, 302 
John, minister of New- 

buryport 280 

John 280 

Percival 280 

Memorial Hall .... 304 
Minister to Spain and Eng- 
land 306 

My Garden Acquaintances . 286 
My Study Window . . . 306 
Nature, Love of . 285-287, 304 
Pennsylvania Freeman, The 302 
Philadelphia, Residence in . 295 
Pioneer, The, 

Contributors to ... 294 

Established 294 

Poe, Edgar Allan .... 294 

Poems ....... 294 

Poems, 

Eirst 291 



INDEX 



323 



PAGE 

Poems, ; 

First volume published . 294 
Second volume published 294 



Volume of 1869 




304 


Poet-statesman 


.' .' 302 


-304 


Position in literature . . 


306 


Present Crisis, The, 






Publication of . 


. . 300, 


303 


Prose works . 


. . 304, 


306 


Search, The 




304 


She Came and Went, 


quoted 


298 


Slavery, Attitude toward . 


294, 




302 


-304 


To the Dandelion . 




300 


Selection from . 


.' .' 285, 


286 



Two Angels : Selection from 299 
Under the Willows, 

Publication of .... 304 

Selection from .... 284 
Vision of Sir Launfal, The, 

Estimate of . . 280, 299, 300 

Publication of ... . 299 

Selection from .... 279 

Writing of 299 

Washers of the Shroud, The 304 

Wells, William .... 288 

White, Maria (Miss). . . 294 

Whittier, John Greenleaf . 294 

Yankee dialect, Student of, 290 

Year's Life, A .... 294 



POEMS (ENTIRE) 

First Snow-Fail, The . . 2G6 [ She Came and Went . . 298 

EXCERPTS 



Biglow Papers, The . . . 288 
Changeling, The .... 295 
Fable for Critics, A 182, 271, 277 
Indian Summer Reverie . 284 



To the Dandelion ... 285 

Two Angels : Longfellow . 299 

Under the Willows ... 284 

Vision of Sir Launfal, The 279 



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